Innocence
by dragonbabezee
Summary: Can damnation buy a chance of salvation? How far will forgiveness stretch? Now a husband and father, Vegeta recalls a time in his youth where he'd felt he'd had no choice, but made a decision even so. Rated M for nastiness, including bad language, violence, sexual content and adult themes.
1. Chapter 1 - Vegeta

_Author's Note:_

_**Short version for people who hate long author's notes** - this story contains some upsetting stuff including violence, allusions to rape and sex with dubious consent. If you're a hardened reader it won't be anything shocking to you, but if you're sensitive to these kinds of thing, don't say I didn't warn you. You may now skip to the beginning of the story._

_**Long version for people who want to hear all about it!** - Though this fic is a stand alone story, it is also a kind of a branching out from my first fic Broken Down Universe. I tried to write this as a single sentence in that story, but it wouldn't fit (I'm not surprised now!), or even fit into a paragraph, so in the end I referred to the incident just as 'that other time.' After leaving it out though, the idea just wouldn't go away, and kept bouncing around in my mind. Eventually, during some free minutes at work, I starting writing it out, wondering how it would go if I gave it room to breathe. I was writing Never Ever Land at home at the time (and still am), and didn't want to end up writing two tales at the same time, but I let myself keep adding to it at work for a couple of months, a few minutes at a time, until I had the first chapter and half. It expanded hugely, with all the space I let it have to tell itself, and I couldn't believe that I could have ever though it would fit inside the body of Broken Down Universe. It started to take over my mind at that point and wrestle with Never Ever Land for my focus. I realised that it was going to be about 5 meaty chapters, so I gave in and decided to bring it home during my holiday and knock the bastard off so I could get back to Never Ever Land. And so you have this!_

_Don't fear, you don't need to have read Broken Down Universe to follow this story (though if you haven't, I think you should - wink wink!). It is my head cannon about Vegeta in his youth. It informs the backstory of Broken Down Universe, and my version of the infamous 3 years (should I ever get round to writing it down), but not really Never Ever Land. If the only stories you've read of mine are Monkey Business or Never Ever Land, prepare for something rather more serious!_

_Thank you to Adli once more, who has continued to be my beta for this story too! I owe her, and I've got no idea how to repay her kindness._

_Lastly, I'd like to tentatively dedicate this fic to flamingpoetic, who I ended up thinking of many times while I wrote this. I hope you like it._

* * *

Vegeta had added a new feature to his nightly routine.

He crept into the nursery; towel wrapped around his waist and still damp from his shower after his evening workout, and made his way to the side of the crib to look down on his daughter. He didn't fight the warm feeling the sight of her stirred in him. He no longer told himself he was soft and clinging to need to check on her. Seeing her plump baby features slack and happy in sleep left no room for any negative thoughts, other than a faint worry for her future, and the never-dying regret that he had denied himself this happiness when his son was born. He hadn't understood back then what it meant to be a father. He hadn't wanted to acknowledge the ties between himself and a helpless thing that could be ended or taken away from him in an instant. He hadn't wanted his son. He hadn't wanted to _feel_.

Not wanting to wake her, but unable to resist, he leant down into the crib to cup his hand over the blue fuzz of her head. She was not quite a year yet and her hair showed no sign of thickening up any time soon – not like a Saiyan child at all. She looked as helpless as he felt her to be.

She waved her baby fists in response and smacked her lips and he stepped back again, in case he woke her and invoked Bulma's wrath. The woman valued sleep above most other things these days. He wondered if she was asleep already. _Too bad for her if she is – I have a use for her about now_, he told himself with a leer.

Just as he was about to turn away to find out, the babe quieted herself by sticking her thumb in her mouth. He'd never seen her do that before but the gesture was familiar and he searched back through his memory for a matching moment.

Without warning the memory hit him all at once – his guard was down and he had no way to plug the breach as those purposely unremembered handful of days came crashing back on him. He caught his breath and caught himself on the rail of the crib as he was blinded by the horror of it. And he saw for the first time just how _horrible_ it was.

Standing here in front of his daughter he finally realised the true extent of his brokenness, his damnation, his evil. How could anything he do now atone for that? He didn't deserve his daughter, or the woman waiting in the next room, or the boy asleep down the hall. He didn't deserve them, and who in their right mind would entrust them to _his_ safekeeping?

'It wasn't my fault,' he whispered as the shame grew heavier and heavier. He could see Bulma and Kakarott in his mind's eye, nodding their heads and agreeing.

_He made you do it_, they said. _You had no choice. You were innocent_.

'But I'm _not_ innocent! _She_ was the innocent one!'

She'd been a child...someone's daughter. There was no Hell deep enough to bury his shame, and no Eternity long enough to make amends for his sins.

_You were just a child too!_

'I was _never_ a child!'

ooo

* * *

ooo

Vegeta awoke with fire in his belly.

He wasn't sure precisely what this feeling was. He didn't want to admit it was nervousness. He didn't think it was happiness, but he had to look a long way back for a happy memory he could compare it too, so he couldn't be sure. He _was_ sure a great part was vindictive glee. Today he was in charge! Today he outranked Nappa! Today he took command of their sad little squadron of surviving Saiyans, and Frieza already had a mission for them.

It meant of course that he would be in charge of reporting directly to Frieza himself, as well as suffering the company of Dodoria and Zarbon more than ever. He'd spent countless hours these last twelve years fantasising about how he would kill all three of them when, gods willing, he became strong enough. He was not yet. Not by a long shot. But he'd been stronger than Nappa since he was ten years old, and now at least Vegeta would not have to suffer the ignominy of taking orders from someone weaker, dumber and lesser born than he. He was a Prince, and he should take orders from no one, especially his own bodyguard. Of course, when they were in private the imposed hierarchy was ignored by the Saiyans in preference for the natural one, but Nappa had grown too comfortable playing the leader of their group in public and on the battlefield, and Vegeta was jealous of the small amount of respect he had garnered as such. Credit for the leadership should go to him alone.

He dressed quickly in his cell-like chamber. It was earlier than he needed to be up, but there was nothing about his room that invited a person to linger. It contained only the bed, bathroom cubicle, chair and a desk that saw very little use. He had very few possessions. He used to collect souvenirs from the planets they visited (or relics as he and Raditz had called them, as the souvenirs were usually from cultures recently made extinct by themselves), but someone had ratted him out, and Zarbon had destroyed them all. Attitude adjustment, Zarbon had called it — character building. Vegeta had felt his character building all right... building to a towering hatred for the smug, green-skinned prick.

He walked as slowly as was seemly to the barracks mess hall, wanting to waste time without inviting a charge of loitering. Like most everywhere on Frieza's planet where the tyrant himself was unlikely to tread, the mess hall was a barren space of neutral colours and relentless functionality. There were only a few soldiers in there, and no one worth his notice except -

Oh no. Cui.

Vegeta tried to slip down the side of the hall to the serving hatch, and succeeded in piling his tray with food and making it to a table in the corner before Cui noticed him and beelined straight for him

'The gluttonous monkey is stuffing his face again I see.'

Vegeta ignored him and continued to hoe into the uninspiring breakfast with single-minded determination.

'Where are your protector and your clown?' Cui pressed. When Vegeta continued to ignore him, Cui hooked a finger over the lip of the tray and yanked it away from the Saiyan. 'Vegeta! I asked you a direct question!'

Vegeta chewed his mouthful and then swallowed. 'So what?'

'So, I am your superior. You'll answer me when I ask a question.'

Vegeta eyed the young, purple creature with open dislike, and asked, more casually than he felt, 'Or what? You'll have me in front of the disciplinary committee again?'

'Not anymore. Don't you remember what Zarbon said last time? I have full discretion when it comes to you now. I'll dish out discipline as I see fit.'

Vegeta smiled and pulled the tray back towards him. 'Well now, maybe it's you who needs to remember? I graduated the officer training yesterday. You don't outrank me any more, Cui, so you don't have carte blanche to punish me, and I _don't_ need to answer your question. And also, fuck you, Cui.'

Cui immediately attempted to yank the tray away again while Vegeta still had his fingers hooked over the lip of it. 'And I graduated last year! I made Lieutenant First class already, Vegeta! I _still_ outrank you!' The brief wrestling over the breakfast tray ended when Vegeta conceded to himself that he was losing, and let go, causing Cui to suddenly stagger back and pull the tray right off the table to splatter its contents down his legs.

Vegeta held on to the urge to laugh and instead just glared his satisfaction at Cui's incensed face. Raditz and Nappa chose this moment to wander in the door. They eyed the situation and drifted to stand behind Vegeta, arms crossed.

'Here they are, Cui, _sir_,' said Vegeta. 'Was it worth getting so wound up about?'

Cui backed off, snorting with rage and seeming at a loss for what to do, looking between his ruined battle suit, the few spectators and the door. Then he said loudly 'Thanks to you, clumsy ape, I now have to rush to get changed before this morning's assignment detail, or I'd haul you out into the quadrangle right now! Zarbon will hear about this!'

Vegeta folded his arms and sat back as Cui turned to go. 'That's right, run to the teacher to tattle on me!' he taunted at Cui's back. Before he could react Cui wheeled around and struck out at Vegeta across the table, knocking him clear out of his seat and into Nappa. The others around the room erupted into a tittering of exclamations and laughter. While they struggled to their feet, Cui was yelling at Raditz.

'Yeah, are you going to take a swing at an officer, monkey clown? Your life isn't worth that much!'

'Out!' yelled a fat, yellow, aproned cook from the serving hatch. 'No fighting in the mess hall!'

Cui smiled and swept out the door while Vegeta boiled at the humiliation and weighed up the consequences of retaliating. The problem was not just that Cui outranked him...he outmatched him too. Not by much, but enough.

_Calm_, he told himself. _Calm_.

Murdering a fellow soldier in the PTO was an offence...but Vegeta had managed to get away with it several times. Frieza had been amused and indulgent with him in this regard so far, at least.

'My savage, darling Prince,' Frieza crooned in his memory. 'What am I to do with you? You are simply incorrigible! Mangostern was a dull fellow, but if you kill one of my favourites I shall be most put out! I'm afraid I'll have to let Zarbon discipline you next time.'

'That Cui is a jumped up little toadstool,' complained Nappa, which was pretty mild criticism for Nappa. 'Come on, let's load up.'

Without further discussion the three of them filed over to the hatch to fill their trays, leaving the mess of Vegeta's first breakfast for the kitchen slaves to clean up. Vegeta found his appetite was diminished anyway, soured by Cui's bullying. On the morning of his first step towards more autonomy in his life, he'd just been reminded how little control he still had.

ooo

Half an hour later he waited in Zarbon's office with a dozen other officers, all there to receive their assignments. Cui was already seated when Vegeta turned up, silently gloating in a way that made Vegeta anxious. Zarbon coolly briefed the officers one by one, not even looking at Vegeta once, and Vegeta felt perspiration prickling his palms as his turn came closer. They were interrupted though, when the door opened and Frieza swept into the room, talking to Dodoria and trailing a couple of clerks. Frieza made his way to the chair behind Zarbon's desk and sat down like it was his own office, putting his feet up on the desk.

'That is _why_, Dodoria, we can't leave those trade routes through the Baltier wormhole to take care of themselves,' he droned, finishing his point before looking at the stunned and trembling group of junior officers before him. His eyes immediately locked onto Vegeta's with a smile.

'I'm not too late, am I, Zarbon?'

'No, my Lord,' said Zarbon chummily, 'you are never late, and always right on time.'

'Excellent! I'd have hated to miss our little prince's first assignment. Such a momentous occasion!' he smiled at Vegeta. Vegeta didn't know why he should be surprised Frieza had turned up. The other officers were eyeing him with hostility now. He was not liked by pretty much anyone, up to and including his own men Nappa and Raditz, though they had a tie of loyalty to him that went deeper than like. His case was not helped by his perceived celebrity as one of Frieza's favourites. Not that Vegeta would have lowered himself to friendship with any of the Planet Trade Organisation's minions. He despised them all in turn, a few in particular, and Frieza most of all.

'If only your father could see you now!' Frieza said. 'So proud he would be, don't you think? Vegeta?'

'Yes, my Lord,' he replied, shrivelling inside yet again at what sounded like praise but felt like poison.

'Of course he would. He said to me, before that fateful day, "Frieza, I know that my son will grow up to be a fine little monkey, but under you I'm sure he will become the best man a monkey could be!" Isn't that what he said, Dodoria?'

Dodoria's fat pink face split open with a grin at Frieza's cruel joke. 'He did too, my Lord.' According to Frieza, King Vegeta had had enough time to impart a seemingly endless number of thoughts regarding his son and his people before he died.

'Now, Zarbon, don't keep me in suspense any longer. What do you have for our little princeling?'

Zarbon pressed a button on the tablet he was holding, and Vegeta's scouter bleeped as a file was uploaded. He tried to follow the scrolling text as Zarbon spoke.

'It's a purge and retrieval job on Nimbus 3, the third planet of the Nimbrian home system.'

'It says their average power level is only nine!' Vegeta objected. 'It hardly warrants the sending of _my_ team!'

'Temper, Vegeta,' chided Frieza. 'Remember that that is not how one addresses a superior.'

'Apologies, sir, but this task would be more suited to one of the... lesser crews,' he said, earning himself even more displeasure from the officers of the said crews.

Zarbon was glaring at him. 'This is not as simple a task as it looks Vegeta, if you would quell your arrogance for a moment. This is a repossession job. The Nimbrians are physically weak, but they have some highly sophisticated technology – they are not backwater hicks who have no method of space travel and little knowledge of the galaxy. They are former clients who have failed to keep up with their payments. You will face attack not only from those on planet, but likely from other planets in the system, and you will have not only your own selves and your space pods to protect, but two slave transports and their crews. You will not find it easy by any stretch. In fact, the whole thing requires some delicacy that I'm not sure you possess.'

Vegeta swallowed down on his anger. 'I will not fail, General Zarbon.'

'Ah, I recall this task, Zarbon!' said Frieza. 'So irritating that the Nimbrians should react with such defiance to my taking that planet as their default. _They_ signed the contract after all! It is not my fault that their profits haven't grown as they expected. But I like this resolution more. This way I get the planet, and if you do your job properly Vegeta, I get ten thousand new Nimbrian slaves and a smattering of Nimbrian technologists! I can hardly wait. I suspect Nimbrians will make fine slaves with their racial psychological profile.'

'You must disable the planetary defences,' said Zarbon, 'protect the slave ships, collect the individuals on this list and their families to use as hostages, and then oversee the collection of ten thousand healthy, adult slaves before the clean up crew arrive.'

Vegeta's brow knitted with anxiety. It did sound complicated, but he nodded to Zarbon. 'I understand. I will prepare my team immediately, sir.' He turned to leave, but Zarbon's voice halted him again.

'Vegeta, you were not dismissed.'

'Sorry, sir.'

'As your new status of lieutenant is provisional -'

'Provisional!' he interrupted, his eyes darting to Frieza, who was hiding a chuckle behind his steepled hands.

'As your new status of lieutenant is provisional,' Zarbon started again, 'and this assignment is complex, you will be attended by a supervising officer who will monitor your progress, assist and even intervene should it be necessary.'

Vegeta stared at Zarbon, aghast that what he'd imagined would be a moment of triumph was being turned to one of humiliation. 'We can handle it, sir! _ I_ can handle it. You should trust me.'

'You'll gain our trust when you've earned it,' said Zarbon.

Vegeta turned to Frieza and did something he would not be proud of when he thought back on it later.

'My Lord Frieza,' he beseeched him, 'this is not fair! I was not told my lieutenant-hood was provisional! Zarbon seeks to treat me as a child still.'

'My dear _Vegeta_, you forget yourself once more,' replied Frieza, his pink face curling around his shining dark-ruby lips as he smiled. 'You are but a precious child to me – perhaps we don't want you to come to any harm on your first outing? Perhaps we were concerned that your behaviour of late has not been up to the standard we expect of our officers? Now apologise to my excellent general, Zarbon.'

Turning red in the face, Vegeta bowed to Zarbon, knowing that he had just made things much worse for himself. 'Apologies, General-'

The back of Zarbon's boot struck him between the shoulder blades, knocking him face first to the floor, his chin making a hollow sound as it struck and snapped his jaw closed.

'Apology accepted, Lieutenant,' said Zarbon smoothly, and the other junior officers tittered at his joke. Vegeta got to his feet, his chin hurting from the second blow of the morning, and body shaking with impotent fury. He did not dare raise his eyes to anyone as he asked, 'Who will the supervising officer be?'

'Lieutenant Cui has volunteered for the job,' said Zarbon.

'Thank you, sir.'

'You are free to go prepare for the mission. The slave ships leave at midday. Do not fail.'

'He won't fail me, Zarbon,' he heard Frieza's voice from behind him. 'He wouldn't dare. I look forward to your report, Lieutenant…Cui, was it?'

ooo

Vegeta walked his way slowly to the ready room with a rage in his brain so black he could barely see where he was going. The room was half full of soldiers pulling on armour, checking inventories and talking amongst themselves. Raditz and Nappa stood as he came towards them, but their expressions fell when they saw his face.

'Something wrong, Vegeta?' ventured Nappa as he swept past them.

'Outside! Now!'

The two other Saiyans exchanged a look and Raditz rolled his eyes, but they followed their prince out the door and onto the open concourse where they wouldn't be overheard. Above them the black, perpetually star filled sky of Planet Frieza 79 twinkled ever onwards. The thin layer of manufactured atmosphere on this planet barely scattered the harsh light of its sun at all, and Frieza liked it that way.

Vegeta stomped away from the buildings, feeling like tearing something apart, but as there was only Nappa and Raditz to choose from he refrained. Besides, a murderous tempter tantrum was the last thing he needed right now.

'_Cui!_' he spat, eventually. 'Fucking Cui is coming along with us on this job as my _supervisor!_'

'Oh shit,' said Nappa.

'Anything that goes slightly not by the book is going to end up in front of Zarbon and Frieza. And Cui will no doubt create problems if he can't find any!'

'We can do it, boss,' said Raditz. 'We won't stuff up. We're the best purge crew there is; everybody knows that. We'll do a perfect run – in, burn it up, and out before he has a chance to wreck things.'

'If only! It's not going to be a straight out fight or purge; it's going to be a mess – keeping specific people alive while defending slave ships! Zarbon is hoping I'll screw it up, but I'm not going to. You two!' He glared at them each in turn. 'I will tolerate absolutely no deviation from my orders. When I've come up with a plan, you stick to it, and if things begin to go sideways report back to me for new orders. No improvising, no side missions, and no looting, do you understand? And we won't be hanging around when we're done either.'

They nodded sullenly. Unless the inhabitants were strong enough to present a challenge to the Saiyans, the best things about their missions were the brain numbing buzz of wanton destruction, and the post-purge fucking around when they would take the time to be themselves for a few hours before the clean up crews arrived. It was an added incentive to purge ahead of schedule. Once, on a job that had been over-estimated, they gained themselves two whole days of tantalising freedom. Usually this meant snooping, looting, (especially of food they could consume right then and there, and Empire credits which they could smuggle back to base to be spent when the opportunity arose at refuelling stations), grizzly barbecues and outright idleness. For Nappa it also meant going on mouse hunts, as he called them – tracking down unlucky survivors who would otherwise be left for the clean up crew, and playing with them before finally killing them. Vegeta found the kind of "play" that Nappa got off on disgusting, but he allowed it as long as he didn't have to witness it. Not this time though.

'The slave ships leave at midday. Have everything ready an hour before then. I want us to leave ahead of the ships, and _don't _let Cui know! I need to study the intel they gave me.'

ooo

It went well.

Vegeta held off the hypersleep in his space pod for several hours while he continued to study and plan, both the information he'd been given and extra notes on the Nimbrian system and people that he'd downloaded to his pod before they left. Four days of hypersleep later he woke hours ahead of their scheduled arrival, then he woke Raditz and Nappa so that he could slavishly go over his plan with them. Cui was an hour and a half behind them with the slave ships, and thankfully still asleep and unable to keep tabs on them.

To begin with they went straight to the largest metropolitan hub, their pods crashing down into the purple fields of a large park near the edge of the city. Within ten minutes they had kidnapped a terrified citizen, had them direct them to the civil records department, strong-armed their way in and had an office full of gibbering civil servants weeping in fear as they frantically turned up the records on the individuals they were looking for. The Nimbrians recognised the armour of Frieza's men. Some of them even recognised them as Saiyans. Vegeta knew that their presence would soon be widely known, but their tool here was going to be speed, not secrecy. Within half an hour Vegeta, Nappa and Raditz were on separate commandeered shuttles headed to different addresses throughout the city, with hostages as guides. With ten minutes to spare before the slave ships entered orbit they already had half the people on their list and more than half the families.

'Nappa, Raditz – take your shuttles and meet the ships,' Vegeta told them over their scouters.

Another half an hour later, Vegeta had the last scientists that lived in the vicinity of the city bound, gagged and in his possession. The city was in an uproar, with sirens going off and no doubt the planets media and military scrambling to meet this situation. Vegeta took his own shuttle up to the slave ships and had the lowly deckhands disembark his quivering cargo. He held his nose as he took the shuttle back down to the planet's surface – the stink of piss and vomit and abject terror the captives had left behind was overpowering.

'Vegeta!' Cui had shouted across the scouter link when he finally woke from his hypersleep. 'How dare you begin without me!'

'I posted our departure time as soon as I knew it,' said Vegeta truthfully. 'It is not my fault if my supervising officer paid no heed to the schedule.'

'Where are you, Vegeta? And what are you doing?'

'I'm following my plan.'

'Well, what is your plan?'

'Watch and learn, Cui – I'm busy. And if you want to be useful you can help Nappa and Raditz destroy the nearby missile bases and silos before the slave ships land.'

'You insolent little fu-'

Vegeta silenced the channel Cui was talking over and turned to his trembling hostage.

'Which is the largest media institution in the city?'

'Nimbus S-state Broadcasting Company,' said the creature. For the first time Vegeta noticed it was a male, green haired and weak, with a short, lank tail curled between its legs. The green tinge to its skin may have been natural or fright.

'Show me the way.'

As the shuttle crossed over the city again they seemed to attract a good deal of attention. Military attention. Obviously Vegeta's high chi readings were giving away his location. He spied a missile flying in from his left and ducked the shuttle to avoid it, but didn't see the one that came up from the rear. It exploded from the back of the shuttle to the front, and Vegeta threw himself through the windshield, right on the edge of the shockwave. The hostage was blown out behind him, on fire, and perhaps dead, but it didn't matter any more. Vegeta had spotted the tower of the NSBC, and he no longer needed the hostage or the shuttle.

Explosive rounds ripped across his back as he continued, tearing his battlesuit and bouncing off his armour. Annoyed, he raised a chi shield and stopped to face a hovering gunship. Its automatic guns whirled with the speed they launched the rounds at him, but now they just ricocheted off his shield and fell like deadly raindrops into the city streets. Next came a missile from another gunship at his back. Vegeta caught it with ease and sent it hurtling back where it came from, causing a rather satisfying explosion, which raised a smile on his face. He could see the panic on the faces of the other pilots and gunners through the windows of their hovering crafts as they realised they were probably all about to die.

'Yes, you are correct,' he said softly. And he needed these guys dead before he entered the media building. He didn't want them blowing the place up before he'd had the chance to use it.

He shot around the back of the closest gunship and grabbed it by the tail, then spun and threw it at the next in line.

'Boom,' he said as the two vehicles did just that, turning to shrapnel and burning fuel in the blink of an eye. Turning, he charged his hand with chi. 'Who's next?'

In less than three minutes he cleansed the city of all the military gunships, troop carriers and tanks that he could see, but he didn't have time to survey his work. He had to get inside the building before it was evacuated or something equally inconvenient.

'Nappa, what are you up to?' he asked into the open com link of his scouter.

'Just landing the ships now, Vegeta. This one's landing where our pods did at... what's it called? Cretin!' Vegeta heard a distant yelp as someone was quickly interrogated by Nappa. 'Pago Regional Park. Raditz and Cui are landing the other at Athletic Stadium a few clicks away.'

'Good. Much resistance?

'Didn't see any in orbit yet, but we've got some waiting for us on the way down.'

Vegeta grunted in acknowledgement, and turned back to the Nimbus State Broadcasting building.

He swooped down low, in through the lobby to find a scene of chaos. Hovering camera rigs zipped back and forwards following crews who were unsure whether to head out into the city, hide inside the building or just try and make a run for it. Security and facilities staff crowded round, watching the large screens on the wall, crying, and at his sudden appearance a cacophony of screams started up as the whole panicked crowd tried to press itself into the corners, up the stairwell and into the elevator. The bright colouring of these aliens made it look like a rainbow had vomited all over the lobby. Guards fired on him and he carelessly swatted energy blasts at them while he kept his eyes on the crowd, searching for a likely target. It was hard to tell with aliens just what constituted "expensively dressed" but eventually he decided on an older woman with electric orange hair, wearing a distinctively cut suit in eye-grabbing red. Several younger people clustered around her holding equipment and even just hanging onto her as if she were their mother. He picked out several official passes hanging around her neck, the NSBC logo prominent among them.

He reached down and hauled her out of the fray by the back of her collar. To her credit she did not scream, merely struggled wildly as the crowd parted below them, people climbing over their fellows in an effort to get away from the menace.

'Who are you?' he asked and shook her when she did not answer immediately..

'Anbolie Kager!' she gasped. 'Senior journalist for...for NSBC news programming!'

'Well,' he smiled. 'Looks like you just got yourself an exclusive scoop!'

ooo

'I am Prince Vegeta of the Planet Trade Organisation. As you may know, the wise rulers of your civilisation have defaulted on their payments to Lord Frieza, and he does not take lightly to freeloaders. He would like to take partial recompense in the form of technical expertise. Listen carefully to the following list of your favoured scientists and engineers. They and their families are to be delivered, ALIVE, to my crew. This is not open to negotiation. Your military will not protect you. Even now my comrades are destroying your tanks and gunships and troops. No rescue from your home planet will make it through either. We are planet destroyers, and such things cannot harm or stop us. You should feel honoured that Lord Frieza should have sent such elite warriors to collect his debt, for this task is well below us, and we will not be pleased if you waste our time.'

He did not openly threaten to populace, but let the implication hang. One way or the other, nearly everyone on this rock was going to be dead by the end of the day, but it was easier for him and the slave ship crews if the Nimbrians turned over the scientists themselves. They would not want to come willingly, but if he told the general populace that they were about to be slaughtered _except_ for the scientists then every man, woman and child would claim to be a professor of terraforming or astro-engineering to try and get on the slave ships. He could lie, but preferred not to. People would believe what they needed and do what they could to save their own skins; he didn't need to sully his honour further by lying.

With this in mind he smiled slightly as he began to read the list of names from his scouter. So far he was quite enjoying his first broadcast appearance. The fools in the studio shook like leaves but the hovering camera rig held steady on his face.

'You have two hours from midday to deliver the scientists to the waiting transports at Pago Regional Park and Athletic Stadium on the out skirts of your capital, so I suggest you hurry.'

He nodded to the crew to cut the broadcast.

'Now have that looped on every station and media for the next two hours,' he told them. 'I'll be back before then.'

ooo

He rejoined Nappa and Raditz for their high-spirited demolition of the military, which was attempting to destroy the slave ships. It was not long before the Nimbrians pulled back. An hour later when a lone shuttle slowly approached under a white flag it was to deliver the first of the scientists with family in tow. By the end of the two hours all but one the required people had been snared. Vegeta was not worried. They were sure to present themselves after he made his next public announcement.

ooo

'We thank you for your co-operation in delivering those on our wanted list. The remaining scientist Barga Len Dor should present themselves forthwith at one of our transports.

'The rest of the recompense Frieza requires is ten thousand healthy, adult slaves. No warriors, military, elderly or infirm will be accepted. The last debt to be paid is your planet.'

Vegeta's eyes flicked over to the skeleton crew that had volunteered to remain at the station for his return. They gasped and cried out, some of them staggering at the news. Pathetic. Didn't they understand that the universe didn't care for their drama? They were flotsam; inconsequential walking corpses.

'Beginning immediately, my crew will purge the planet of sentient life. If you wish to be one of the ten thousand slaves, make your way to Pago Park or Athletic Stadium, outside your capital. We are standing by to assess your eligibility.'

As he left the studio a realisation hit him and he stopped in the doorway and turned back to the crew who were still staring at him, aghast.

'I guess I don't need you anymore,' he said. The room erupted into action and screams, and Vegeta released quick bursts of chi, trying to make each one count for his own satisfaction. 'As easy as shooting drunks in a holding cell,' he said as the last one fell, charred, to the floor. He exited through the wall.

Panic reigned on the streets and in the air above the city as he left it behind. No doubt every space-faring vessel on the planet's surface would be attempting to launch very soon. There wouldn't be enough to take even a fraction of the populace to safety, and they'd be figuring that out pretty soon. Perhaps there would be bloodshed in the ports? He would let the ships leave. Purging the planet meant only removing the people from it, it didn't matter how, and besides, he would need hundreds of men to stop all the ships.

'Nappa, now is your hour,' he said as he touched down outside the barriers in Pago Park.

'All righty!' chuckled the older Saiyan, taking to the air.

ooo

By nightfall half the planet was razed and the slave quota was almost filled. Nappa, Raditz and Vegeta took turns guarding the ships and decimating the towns, cities and villages of Nimbus 3. He could have left Cui to defend one of the ships, but he just didn't trust him enough to leave him in sole charge of a ship. Vegeta felt his plan was running perfectly, and he could get no more than furious, snappish replies when he pointed this out to his "Supervising officer".

When he wasn't out having his taste of destruction, Vegeta kept one eye on the messy, noisy, bloody matter of accepting and declining slaves. The able slave crews manned the barriers, letting everyone through one by one, but split into two lines. A screen set up hid the fact that one way led to the ship and the crew member who would manacle them, and the other led to a burly wrangler with a high-voltage electric prod and a rapidly growing mound of bodies. Some people were figuring out what was going on when they got to the head of the line, causing all sorts of drama when they tried to back out just before they made it to sorting, and even more so when they made it through sorting and found themselves pointed towards the short walk.

'Disgusting,' Vegeta muttered, seeing a middle aged man beg and then make a sudden dash for the other queue. A crew member shot him with a small chi blast between the shoulder blades in full view of the queuing masses, and another outbreak of hysteria swept the crowd. They surged against the barrier, shaking the post that Vegeta balanced on, looking down and out at it all. He decided that being a slave crew member was truly a shitty job. Being this close to so much angst and self-pity grated against his nerves. He felt about ready to jump down and kick some weeping fools to death.

Nappa reappeared out of the dusky sky.

'It's your turn for some fun, boss,' he said, coming to a stop in the air before him.

'Good,' he replied, but then his attention was caught by the shout of the slave ship's first mate from below.

'Lieutenant Vegeta, we've got five thousand slaves aboard. We're done here.'

'Thank the Gods,' Vegeta answered, but his words were lost in the roaring of the terrified crowd as this news spread through them. The barriers flexed as people crushed their fellows against them, as if by force they could bring the quota number up and keep their lives.

'Back, back! We don't need no more of you squishies!' roared a brown, warthog-like slaver as he bodily held the crowd back and a crewmate dragged the gate shut.

Vegeta charged a large, showy ball of chi in his hand. The crowd hushed slightly and those at the front attempted to back away. He could hear his name whispered, screamed and cried over an over, like the choir that would surely usher his entrance to Hell when he died.

'I'll give you a head start, as I'm so sporting,' he shouted down. 'I suggest you run!'

The screams escalated as the tide turned back on itself, crushing bodies as the confusion manifested in waves of compression travelling though the horde.

Vegeta frowned and let the chi dissipate. This despair was all so dreary up close. He dropped to the ground to inspect the paperwork presented to him by the first mate, ignoring at the din behind him for now. As soon as the slave quotas were filled they could see the ships safely off and concentrate on clearing the populace. He checked in on Raditz via the scouters to see how close they were to filling their ship.

'Another half an hour the captain reckons.'

'Good,' he replied, looking off though the mesh of the expandable barrier towards the smoking city. Half an hour and they'd be practically home free. Not much could go wrong from that point outwards. Zarbon and Cui would have to eat crow. He wondered if Frieza would be pleased. He found it hard to tell at times whether Frieza wished the Saiyans to succeed or not. When they messed up or were slow (and the bar was fairly arbitrary when it came to what Frieza deemed slow or a failure) the punishment ranged from Frieza's peevishness and shitty future assignments, all the way to life threatening beatings. Likewise, when Frieza decided to indulge his 'little princeling' and his men, the rewards were also unpredictable. Most likely it would be just be more double-edged praise, designed to make others jealous, not to make Vegeta feel good. But at times there had been other rewards – feasts in Frieza's own chambers, accompanying the tyrant on some engagement on a civilised planet, or even, once, on a pleasure trip just to witness a scheduled supernova light up a nebula.

The rewards Vegeta really wanted though were more challenging assignments, higher rank and more autonomy. Vegeta found himself in a constant war of desires. He wanted to be free from Frieza, but the only way to get away for sure was to become strong enough to slay him. The only way to become stronger was to be constantly fighting, forcing his body to new lengths and pushing it past its limits again and again, so it healed stronger than ever before. And so, ironically, the fastest way to become stronger than Frieza and free himself, was to keep working for him.

If he could get the most challenging assignments, the faster this process would become. The amassing of strength and the surpassing of Frieza's power was the desire that lay under all his actions. His father told him he would be the Legendary Super Saiyan one day. He couldn't let the memory of his father down. One way or another, he must avenge him, and he must become that shining pinnacle of his race – a Super Saiyan. Revenge, ascension and freedom. For Vegeta, the purposes were mingled in his mind, and he could not possibly have one without the other two. There was little doubt for him that he couldn't defeat Frieza _without_ ascending. This was his purpose – what he'd been born to do – the last, most powerful scion of the Saiyan Empire, destined for glory and blood-soaked retribution – it was certainly the only thing he lived for.

In the meantime, he wanted higher rank because it sickened him to be looked down upon by anyone. He should be no-ones lackey. He could accept that he could do nothing but roll over for the likes of Dodoria, Zarbon and Frieza for now, but doing the same for Cui and any other officer in the PTO burned like acid at his pride.

And more long assignments would be a relief. The less thumbs he was under the better; and there was nothing he valued more in Frieza's service than the stolen moments where he could pretend he was his own master. Not having to face the cretins in the PTO for days or weeks at a time, and having more reasons to stop in at refuelling stations and wayside planets and make good use of the looted credits they'd amassed.

They had quite a bit of cash between them at the moment, waiting for a chance to be spent. Nappa and Raditz would probably want to spend theirs on black market booze, gambling, strip clubs and whores, and most of all, piles and piles of the best food they could get their hands on. Vegeta was all for the food – little could be said of the usual fare on Frieza's bases, other than it kept you alive. He didn't mind the drinking, though he hated to get drunk, and hated the others when they were drunk too. He didn't enjoy gambling – at least, not on a game of chance. He had once lost most of his money during a game of gambit-hand that he hadn't even particularly wanted to play. He'd been angry, especially towards Raditz who had gotten him into the game against his better judgement, saying that it was a lot more fun when the stakes were high. After the game was over he'd stalked the streets until he found the winner of the game, mugged him and broke his neck. Then he'd beaten Raditz so badly that he and Nappa had had to shell out most of their cash anyway to pay for Raditz's stay in a public regen tank before they could leave the refuelling base.

The few times they'd been, he'd appreciated the strip clubs at the same time as he hated the tawdriness of them. He hated seeing the girls twist and contort in attempt to please, not because they wanted to please but because they wanted money. They disgusted him, but at the same time seeing that naked flesh gave him fuel for his imagination when he tugged at himself alone in his cell at night. In his dreams they danced for him, jealously vying for his attention, and he was the one on stage.

And the whores...What would he do if Raditz insisted he come along to some bordello again? He'd been twice...If strippers disgusted him, whores filled him with loathing, but both times he'd still been aroused, completed the deed, and enjoyed it while he was doing it...But the instant it was over shame flooded him. And it was worse than the strippers because he was disgusted at himself. He felt dirty. _Paying_ for sex? _Paying?_ It somehow made him feel less than what he was. Why was he having to pay for something that should be given to him willingly? He was a prince! It should have been his right to pick his own mate, and only the best Saiyan woman, and she would have been his and no one else's! Instead his had been reduced coupling with begrudging alien hookers who wanted payment up front.

Still, he remembered the way it felt to be inside a woman. Wanting it all over again made him feel like he was no better than an instinct-driven animal. Sometimes he promised he'd never stoop so low again. Sometimes he knew he might break that promise.

He shuddered.

He had little to do with the slaves of any gender who worked on Frieza's planets in the shipyards and factories. He'd seen well enough the consequences of fucking with Frieza's livestock right under his nose, so he scrupulously avoided the slave quarters just like any other male soldier who knew what was good for him. All his interaction with females had been during his travels, so nearly all the women he'd met were whores, bar workers, strippers and slaves in the seedy twilight settlements that sprang up around refuelling stations. Out of the ones who were free to take him to bed there was barely a handful that he'd found attractive. However, he'd soon found that just because he was willing, didn't mean the female was. He had no clue how to entice a girl with anything but the crudest propositions, and his awkward attempts been met with scorn at best. At worst, they were terrified. His cold-killer reputation was already starting to precede him, and whenever a woman realised who he was, the fear in their eyes dowsed his desire with contempt. Taking advantage of their terror would hardly be more honourable than Nappa's mouse hunts.

Still...maybe he would come across one who didn't fear him? Or maybe he should just ignore the next girl's fear of him? So what if they were scared? He wouldn't hurt them...he just wanted...

'Vegeta!'

Nappa's voice recalled him to the present.

'Are you going to take your turn blowing shit up, or are we just going to wait for the other ships to be done loading?'

'We'll wait,' he told Nappa. He looked back out the gates and realised that nearly all the crowds had dispersed now. Just a few desperate or deluded people pressed up against the gate. Vegeta walked closer, curious as to what kind of idiot would still be here. How many could he kill just standing at the gate?

'Please!' shouted a man nearly at his shoulder. 'It took us hours to get here from Corrs City! Are we not to have a chance?'

Vegeta glanced up to see who spoke but his eyes met a pair of wide, purple eyes framed by shocking pink hair. A girl about his own age was standing next to the speaker with her arms resting on the top of the gate, staring at Vegeta.

The warthog-faced slaver crew member laughed at the man who stood next to her. 'We're here to take slaves, not be fair!' he said.

The man was weeping as he spoke. 'Just take my daughter, please! She's too young to die!'

'We've already met our quota. Now piss off or let me put you out of your misery right here.' The slaver raised his hand threateningly and the man heaved a sob and grabbed the girl's shoulders. Now the girl looked back and forth between Vegeta and the slaver, wordless terror on her face as she faced her doom.

'Please!' screamed the man. 'Look how pretty she is! Look how young! Tell me there is no one on that ship you'd rather swap out for her! Save my daughter's life! Take her, please!'

Vegeta found that he couldn't look away. He agreed with her father – there were piles of uglier, older females they'd packed on board. The way she was staring at him made him feel a strange pulling sensation in his chest. Or was it his loins?

'I've had enough of your whining,' said the slaver.

'Wait!' said Nappa, stepping forward and leering at the girl. 'I'll take her.'

'Oh, thank the Gods, thank the Gods!' cried the man even as the girl cringed away from Nappa. Nappa snatched her wrist and lifted her over the barrier, as careless as if she were a doll.

'No, thank _you!_' he said to the man, flicking a tiny wasp of chi at him. The girl couldn't see around the bulk of Nappa's body, but she seemed to have guessed what might have happened to make the dull crackle and smell of singed flesh.

'Dad! No!'

She thrashed around at the end of Nappa's arm, trying to get free, her frightened eyes coming back to Vegeta's again and again. Vegeta suddenly realised he was looking at Nappa's next mouse hunt victim.

'No!' he shouted.

Suddenly everyone was looking at him. Vegeta hadn't thought past the immediate need he'd felt to stop the way things were going. He realised his heart was pounding as Nappa frowned at him.

'I know you said there'd be no time for screwing around, Vegeta,' Nappa protested, 'but we've got half an hour till the other ship is done, and Cui will never know.'

'No,' Vegeta repeated, glad that Nappa had handed him a reason for his outburst. 'This mission will be perfect.'

She was still staring at him, her chest heaving with panicked breaths and he found it hard to think and look at her at the same time. Her skin had a slight coloured sheen to it like all the other Nimbrians – hers was a pale opalescent pink that matched her hair. Her short tail, covered in fine pink fur was stiff with fright. Her white blouse showed off the top of the swell of her breasts and her round shoulders. She was just a bit plump, but her waist was narrow and swelled out to round hips in a way that suggested to Vegeta's hands that they could rest on those curves quite happily. She was the most delicious-looking female he'd ever seen.

'So what do I do with her then?' complained Nappa.

When Vegeta didn't answer immediately Nappa huffed and said 'Okay, okay, I'll just kill her then and chuck her on the slag heap.'

'NO!' shouted Vegeta for the second time, his voice mingled with the girl's cry. A feeling of panic had come over him at the thought of this gem thrown away with the rest of this planet's refuse.

'What then?'

'I'll deal with her,' Vegeta said, stepping forward and grabbing her other wrist. She was trembling from head to toe now and looked like she was about to pass out. Nappa glared at him

'Oh, will you now?'

'Yes.'

'You're just going to kill her, then?' said Nappa, sneering down at Vegeta knowingly.

'Yes.'

'Then you can do that right here.'

Vegeta realised he didn't know what he wanted to do or was going to do, but he knew he didn't want to do that.

'No.'

'No? If you wanted her for yourself you could have just said, Vegeta, but I don't appreciate you dressing up your hypocrisy as righteousness.'

Vegeta glared up at Nappa and pulled on the girl's wrist. Nappa released her.

'Appreciate this, you insubordinate fuck,' Vegeta said, leaping up with a lightning fast kick to the bigger man's guts. Nappa, taken completely by surprise, and was launched up over the barriers to land in the midst of the doomed rabble outside.

Vegeta tossed the fainting girl over his shoulder before he had to deal with any more questions and took to the air, flying up out of sight behind the slave ship.

* * *

_Author's note: So, what do you think of the opening chapter? Leave me a review to let me know! I'll be posting the second chapter soonish._

_Also, I wrote this section while at work and under immense pressure. I wonder if it shows at all in the prose or subject matter?_


	2. Chapter 2 - Chia

_Author's Note: So I meant to post this yesterday, but I was deep in Renovation Hell, and had absolutely no time for sitting at a computer and editing stuff. I was asked how old Vegeta was meant to be in this fic. I was hoping people would figure it out and get a feel for how old he is, but if you feel it's not coming across, or it's important, let me know and I'll include it in the author's note for the next chapter._

* * *

Vegeta really didn't have a clue what he was going to do with the girl he had hoisted over his shoulder. He _should_ kill her, but he didn't want to. He could release her back out into the wilds with the other walking dead. Maybe she would survive another few days until the clean up crews finished her off.

What he wanted to do was look at her. His fingers sank into the pleasingly supple flesh of her thigh. Her buttock was pressed to his cheek, and experimentally he ran his free hand over it, causing her to jump and whimper. He could smell her, but it was strongly tainted with the astringent scent of fear and stress – not what he wanted to smell.

Spying his pod's crash site, and having no better idea, he dropped into the privacy of the crater and put the girl on her feet. She backed away from him on rubbery legs until she stumbled on a clod of dirt and fell on her rump. Vegeta followed and stood over her, his eyes taking in the details of her.

'What are you going to do to me?' she asked, her voice tremulous and as terrified as every helpless victim Vegeta had had the misfortune to speak with. He growled in annoyance at her question because he _still_ didn't know, but he didn't answer her. He would not have to answer to _her_ at least.

He let his eyes gorge on her. She was wearing red sandals, open at the toes and some skin tight pants that ended at her knee. The top she wore was sleeveless and low cut and currently gaping to one side to reveal some yellow foundation garment holding her breasts snugly. He wondered if her whole body was as soft and inviting as her thigh had been. He wondered what she smelt like when she wasn't awash with sweat and adrenalin. Why had she stared at him before? He had thought for a moment that she wanted him; for a crazy moment that she had found him as attractive as he did her, but as he watched her cowering before him he realised he'd been wrong. He maybe she'd just wanted his help – what a ridiculous notion! Or maybe she'd just been terrified of him above any other. Whatever it was, he was disappointed the illusion was gone.

He wanted to touch her, but...was this what he was going to do? This was no hussy making him pay for the privilege of looking or touching. She was real and she wasn't selling anything...but she also wasn't willing. Would he make her his first "mouse hunt", use her and kill her just like Nappa would have?

Her eyes bored back into him, the deep purple irises swimming with tears. He hated tears.

'Are you going to put me on the slave ship?' she asked at last.

He didn't know. He supposed it was a possibility.

'Do you _want_ to go on the slave ship? I've heard the slave's life is not much better than death anyway, though it's technically still _alive_. But a life without hope.'

'I don't know,' she said. And then she drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them. 'Yes! I don't want to die!'

'Very well then.' He formulated a brief plan in his mind – to carry her on board faster, hopefully, than any of the crew could see, snatch another who's place she would take, whip them outside and kill them in her stead. He didn't want Cui to hear about his preferring one slave over another – Zarbon was bound to hold it over his head as suspicious. Still, his plan would take moments. He had time to waste, and he was reluctant to part from her yet.

He dropped to his hands and knees and shuffled right up to her, taking in the fineness of her pores and follicles. Her lips were a deeper pink than his own. Her tears were annoying though. He wished she wouldn't cringe and try and turn from him as he came closer.

'I won't hurt you,' he said, thinking that would calm her down. It didn't though. She gulped air in and sobbed, trembling where she sat.

'What...what do you mean...you won't hurt m-me?' she said between convulsions. 'What are you going to do?'

Vegeta frowned. Her scent was intolerable. He hated the stink of fear and desperation as much as he hated tears. How was Nappa able to enjoy this mouse hunt shit?

Inspiration hit him. There had been some habitations on the fringes of the park. 'I'm going to get you cleaned up,' he told her, and crouched to bundle her up into his arms. He flew so fast that she couldn't catch her breath to scream before he alighted on the doorstep of a house and kicked the door in. Hunting about, he followed his nose to the scents of soaps and other disinfectants and put her down in a bathroom. 'Wash yourself,' he commanded.

'You mean, like, all over?'

'Of course.' There was a screened corner unit with an array of jets. He located an on switch, and was satisfied to see that it turned on and water began spraying out of it.

'Get in.'

She stepped in fully clothed and adjusted the settings on the jets, keeping her eyes on him the whole time.

'Get rid of your clothes,' he said. 'They stink!'

She gaped at him and started crying again, but obediently began taking her sodden pants off. Satisfied, Vegeta went back out into the hallway, searching the rooms for fresh clothes for her. She couldn't go on the slave ship naked. He'd seen the conditions on board, and he disliked the idea of that fine pink skin unprotected from the filth.

He ransacked the drawers of a bedroom, coming up with something feminine looking and stretchy and a handful of underwear to pick from. When he returned to the bathroom clouds of steam were coming from the cubicle. The girl kept her naked back towards him, though she must've heard him come in. He leant against the wall for a few minutes, watching her scrub her skin. The round curves of her were partially obscured by the jets and the steam, and he felt a strong stirring of desire. However, that faltered when he saw that her back was shaking with her silent weeping. She was a mouse all right.

After a while he realised that she was never going to get out unless he made her.

'That is enough. Get out now.'

She turned the jets off and looked cringingly over her shoulder at him, holding one forearm across her breasts and covering her crotch with her other hand. Vegeta held down his annoyance. Though he'd not been sure what he'd wanted from her when he snatched her, he knew it wasn't for him to babysit a creature more timid than a vole. He handed her a drying cloth, and she snatched it away from him, giving him a flash of pale pink breasts in the process. She smelt far better now – just wet skin and only a tiny hint of fear. Vegeta felt his lust returning again as he watched her hurriedly rub herself down, trying to keep herself as covered from him as possible.

'You don't need to fear me,' he said, deciding it was true.

'I don't believe you,' she said. 'I think you might...do...' She didn't say what she thought he might do though, perhaps from fear it would give him ideas. He pushed himself away from the wall to stand right in front of her and she went very still, holding the towel before her and staring at a point somewhere below his chin. She wasn't as tall as he, which pleased him.

'Did I not say I wouldn't hurt you?' he said, tasting the warm, moist air that rose from her skin as he spoke.

She nodded, raising her eyes as high as his lips.

'I'm going to put you on the slave ship.'

She finally looked him in the eyes. 'Thank you,' she said, quietly. She had interesting eyes he decided. Round and wide and edged with short magenta lashes, though they were rather spoilt by her crying. Vegeta supposed that if he was going to do anything, now was the time. Almost as timid as the girl, he raised his hand to stroke it down her arm, not remembering until he did so that he was still wearing his white gloves. She shrank away from him while he lifted his other hand to pull his glove off, only to find it full of clothes.

'Are those for me?' she asked, following his gaze.

'Yes,' he said. 'You'll need clothes on the slave ship.'

'Thank you!' she said, pulling them out of his hand and stepping back. He let her go, the moment passing; a moment he wasn't sure he'd wanted anyway. She shoved herself into the white and purple dress as fast as she could, letting Vegeta catch many glimpses of her in her haste. Then she pulled on a pair of black underwear and Vegeta had to smile at the result. The dress was far too small, and clung to her everywhere, barely covering the underwear. It didn't cover them at all when she bent to put her red sandals back on.

'Vegeta, we're lifting off now,' said Raditz's voice, slicing into the scene via the scouter.

'What?' Vegeta shouted, making the girl jump in alarm. 'You said half an hour!'

'Well, it's been almost that,' said Raditz defensively. 'Should we have waited? I thought you'd be chomping at the bit to go.'

'I'm...I just stepped away. We'll be a couple of minutes behind.' He cut the link, swearing loudly, but Nappa almost immediately cut in.

'Vegeta, are you coming back? The other ship is in the air already!'

'Fuck it, Nappa, I'll be there in two minutes!' He cut that link too and picked the girl up again, making her scream as he flew through the house and out the door again.

As he sped across the park he could see the slave ship that he had supervised also lifting off – doors closed and no chance to sneak the girl on board.

'Fuck!'

'Vegeta, are you nearly here?' asked Nappa.

'Yes,' he snapped. 'Nappa, why the fuck would you order the ship to lift off already?'

'I didn't, Vegeta. Cui did.'

A third voice joined the conversation. 'I'm surprised to find you AWOL when you should be in command, Vegeta,' said Cui.

'I wasn't AWOL, I was taking a dump,' lied Vegeta.

'If you say so,' said Cui, breaking contact before Vegeta had a chance to.

Vegeta growled and looked down at the girl and realised that Cui had made a liar out of him. Her brows trembled as if tears threatened again.

'I'm not going on the slave ship, am I?'

Not sure what to say or do with her, Vegeta dropped back down into the crater with his pod again. He needed to be back up the air asap, and not wondering what to do with her. Ignoring her questions and panic he opened the pod door and shoved her in – a problem to be dealt with later. Then he joined other others escorting the ships to the upper atmosphere.

ooo

It was another five hours before the Saiyans summoned their pods. Every city, township and village was a smouldering ruin.

'I'm shagged,' sighed Nappa, looking to the horizon for their approaching pods. 'I almost can't wait to get back to base. This job was no fun at all.'

'Do you think we'll get in trouble for letting so many escape?' worried Raditz. When the spacefleet from the Nimbrian homeworld arrived their wise commanders had recognised a lost cause when they saw it. They had let the slave ships pass unmolested – after all, it was mostly their own people onboard – and instead set about evacuating as many people as their ships would hold, carefully picking landing spots far away from where their equipment told them the Saiyans were. There had been nothing they could do to prevent those rescues.

'I don't think so,' said Vegeta, or at least he fervently hoped not. 'Frieza would have needed to send a hundred soldiers if he'd wanted every last Nimbrian dead, not just three.'

'Look out, here comes Cui,' Nappa warned.

Sure enough, _four_ pods were flying towards them through the sooty morning sky.

'Where was he when he could have been doing something useful?' Raditz complained.

'Probably planting contraband in our pods, or some other shit,' said Nappa. Vegeta grunted in agreement, and then his stomach dropped. He still had a girl locked in his pod.

The four pods came to a gentle stop before them. Cui's hatch opened and he climbed out.

'Well Vegeta,' he said. 'Are we ready to leave now?'

'The job is done, so yes,' he replied. Cui can't have discovered the girl, or he'd already be leaping down Vegeta's throat about it. He relaxed a little. 'Where have you been? _Sir?_'

'Inspecting your work, Vegeta. Making sure you monkeys didn't do a half-assed job.' Cui looked pissed off. Perhaps he couldn't find fault with the mission? Vegeta grinned.

'The clean up crew are only half an hour away,' he told Cui.

'It's a very tight schedule you've been running to,' Cui said. 'A little arrogant of you to leave so little time for contingencies, although it's paid off for you today. Let us be on our way then, as there's nothing more keeping us here.'

Nappa and Raditz wearily opened and entered their pods, folding their large bodies into the tight spaces. Vegeta moved more slowly though, as Cui still stood by own pod, watching him. Vegeta couldn't very well open the door of his pod while Cui had eyes on him – he would no doubt see what was inside. Cui's face crunched up into a suspicious frown as Vegeta hesitated, still looking at him.

'Are you going to try something, Monkey Boy? If you're going to attack me, by all means go ahead. I'll beat your spleen out your ears and file the report!'

'And get a pat on the head from Zarbon?'

'Your mouth is going to get you killed one day, Vegeta!'

'Not killed by you though, Cui. That would just piss Frieza off no end.'

'Yes, go on, hide behind Mommy's skirts!'

Anger shot through Vegeta at those words, and he regretted the jibe about pissing Frieza off, but he clenched his fists and swallowed it down. Then he looked into the sky above Cui and touched his scouter, feigning shock.

'Is that Zarbon now?'

Cui spun on the spot and Vegeta yanked open the hatch of his pod, and slapping his hand over the mouth of the startled girl. He climbed halfway in and turned, his body blocking the entrance, and one hand ready to slam the hatch. Cui swivelled back looking furious for being so easily teased.

'Aw, I guess it wasn't your crush after all,' taunted Vegeta, climbing the rest of the way in and slamming the hatch. He found himself crouching between the legs of the girl, who he was pressing up against the back wall rather harder than he'd meant to. He released her and she gulped at air, rolling herself into a ball and banging into his knees, knocking him into the hatch in the confined space.

'What's going on?' she asked shrilly.

'We're taking off,' he said. 'I can't just push you out here. We'll take off, and then once the others are in hypersleep I'll circle the pod around and take you back to the Nimbus homeworld. Pod 45, link to pods designated Nappa, Raditz and Cui, and initiate take off.'

He pushed her across the seat of the pod, wedging his backside next to hers between the foam-filled armrest cushions, but the girl immediately scrambled away from him until she crouched where he had been in front of the hatch window.

'Initiating take off,' chimed the detached voice of the pod's computer. The girl lost her balance as the pod shot upwards, ending up with her hands either side of Vegeta's hips and her head almost in his lap as she fought the g-forces trying to crush her into the pod floor. He grinned in amusement and then helped her out, pushing her shoulders until she sat upright again.

'You're blocking the window,' he told her. 'Don't you want to see your planet one last time?'

'I already saw,' she said, but turned anyway. She sat on one armrest, and rested her feet on the other so that her legs made a bridge over his crossed legs. With her face pressed to the red disk of the window she said, 'When this thing took off before - I already saw what you and your men did to my planet. To my people. It's all just cinder.'

To his dismay she started crying again, and not silent tears or even modest sobs, but full body convulsions, her face twisting into a grimace of agony as breathless gasps turned into a ragged cry that built and built until she was wailing.

'Stop it!' Vegeta yelled, but she ignored him, the noise growing louder and more distressing. 'SHUT UP!' He grabbed her shoulders and gave her an irritable shake, but she still went on. 'Shut up, or I swear, I'll snap your neck, right now!'

She tried to suck back some of the sobs then, but failed, and furious, Vegeta grabbed her and pulled her against him, wrapping one gloved hand over her mouth and nose. She screamed against his palm and struggled, but he preferred the sounds of her muffled panic to the crying. He wasn't really going to suffocate her though, or snap her neck - he'd have to travel all the way to the Nimbrian homeworld with a dead body on board if he did that.

No. That wasn't the real reason.

He just didn't want to kill her.

Her struggles were starting to become feeble before he finally released his hand from her face, and she sucked in air, big heaving breaths, too greedy for oxygen to cry anymore. Vegeta watched her as he contemplated his motives. She _did_ smell nice, a living scent, and not a male one, which is what he was usually surrounded by. He had one arm firmly around her middle, and his hand rested on her ribs just under her breast. She was so delicate he couldn't feel any muscle between the skin and bones at all. He gave her a little squeeze to feel how easily her ribs flexed, and the movement had the effect of making her squeal and pressing her soft bottom against his crotch.

He wanted something from her. He wasn't totally sure what, but he was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to give it to him if she was dead.

She struggled away from him again, and he let her go, even though he'd rather she'd stayed nestled between his legs. She took up her place, balanced across the low armrests again.

'You – you said you were going to take me to the Homeworld?' she said.

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'Because I can't take you back to Planet Frieza. I can't be caught with you on board.' It was the truth.

'Well, thanks anyway,' she said. 'It's better than the slave ship. Much better.'

He grunted, having nothing further to add to the conversation.

'You're Prince Vegeta, aren't you?' she then asked in a tiny voice. It shook, as if she might cry again. Vegeta heaved a sigh of annoyance.

'Yes.'

'I recognised your voice, from the wireless transmission.' She started shaking. 'You're really young-looking. I think you might only be the same age as me.'

'So what?'

'I don't understand…how can you have done the things you've done? And why would you bother saving me when you've…when you've…'

'Do NOT start crying again!'

The girl buried her face in her hands and bowed her head to her knees in an effort to obey him. After a few moments of listening to her laboured breathing Vegeta decided enough time had passed since their lift off for the others to be in hypersleep already.

'Pod 45, unlink navigation from pods designated Nappa, Raditz and Cui.'

'Navigational systems unlinked,' replied the tinny voice calmly.

'Set a new course for pod 45 to Nimbus 1.'

'Trajectory updated.'

The pod began to swing slowly around, heading across the solar system towards the cradle of the Nimbrian civilisation. The girl looked up, her emotions in check for now, and peered out of the hatch. Their destination could already be made out – a reflective blue-ish white ball, tiny in the distance.

'I've never been there before,' she whispered. 'My grandparents still live there though.'

Vegeta frowned at the unfamiliar concept of _grandparents_.

'Aren't you even going to ask me what my name is?' she asked, even more quietly.

Vegeta sighed in resignation. Were females usually this…_talky_? He decided to humour her for the next few minutes it would take to arrive on the planet.

'What is your name?' he asked gracelessly.

'Chia.'

Right then a noise crackled across Vegeta's senses that nearly made him leap out of his skin – the gentle 'bing' of a hail to his pod. Moving so fast that he almost knocked it through the pod wall, he covered the camera for the video-link with his hand, right before Cui's face appeared on the small screen next to it.

'Vegeta! Why have you changed course?' he demanded. 'And why can't I see you? What are you hiding?'

'Nothing, Cui. My pod is experiencing technical difficulties. I decided to land on the nearest planet to check it over.'

'Nothing, Cui _Sir_!' the purple skinned officer reminded him. 'Pod 67, what warnings and alerts are in place for pod designated Vegeta?'

'No warnings or alerts in place,' his pod replied.

'Really? It can hardly be that bad if there are none, can it Vegeta? Why should you need to land? Leave it to the technicians at base to sort out.'

'It may be minor, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. It is, after all, my life that depends on the pod's operation.'

'No,' said Cui sternly. 'I think you're just looking for some excuse to spend some private time planetside. Off on a little jolly of your own, thinking no one would notice.'

'You can see for yourself that the vid-link isn't working. Other systems may be affected. I don't want to take the risk with my life.'

'Whereas I don't mind taking that risk! Pod 67, override navigational control on pod designated Vegeta on authority of Lieutenant Cui, first class.'

'Navigational control overridden.'

'Set pod designated Vegeta on a course for Planet Frieza 79.'

'Trajectory updated.'

Vegeta was doubly glad that Cui couldn't see him and the expressions of panic and rage that passed over his face.

'If anything serious happens to your pod I'm sure you and I will both be woken in time to act. Unless it's a sudden, explosive hull breach, but I can only live in hope. I suggest you get a few nods in, Vegeta.'

Cui ended the communication leaving Vegeta growling in frustration and fear.

'What does that mean?' asked the girl, but he ignored her, trying to think of a way out of this mess.

'Does it mean we have to go back to Frieza's planet? I can't go there! You said I can't be caught on board!' she was yelling, her panic the mirror of his own.

'I know!' he snapped.

'What are we going to do?'

'I don't know!' he yelled right back at her. 'Shut up! I have to think!'

It was his first mission. It was supposed to be perfect! It had almost _been_ perfect! How had he managed to let himself fall into this position? Now instead of reward he would be looking at a punishment that would be severe at best, unless he could make this chit disappear between here and the pod bay. Without navigational control he couldn't even stop to throw her out into space. _People_ were grade A contraband. Frieza was a jealous Lord, and an asexual one. He didn't like the idea of his soldiers having sentiment for anyone besides himself, and sex was disgusting and incomprehensible to him. Keeping a warm body around to slake one's lust with was as intolerable to Frieza as the thought of smuggling home a one-true-mate. Vegeta had seen soldiers try both before, and lose their mates or whores and often their own lives when they were discovered. Before he'd set out he'd been worried about ditching the provisional nature of his officerhood, and now he'd fucked up to the point where he might have forfeited his life.

For half an hour or so Vegeta fretted over the possibilities available while the girl sat trembling over him. The smell of fear was rising, but Vegeta knew he was almost as much to blame for it as she was. Eventually his obsessive thinking was interrupted by the voice of the pod's computer.

'Less than twenty-five percent of the oxygen supply remains. Hypersleep is recommended to conserve oxygen.'

'Crap,' he said, looking up at the girl's questioning face. 'Listen, when we get to the pod bay on Planet Frieza, stay inside the pod, right at the back. After a few minutes I'll return and get you out. Then I'm going to hide you in an access way. For probably some hours, understand?'

'Yes. Then what?'

'And then, when I get a chance, I'll return again in the night and smuggle you into the slaves' quarters.'

She nodded even as her face crumpled in more tears. Vegeta huffed and pushed himself to one side of the seat, and then pulled her down next to him to that they were jammed in side by side.

'No!' she moaned, and tried to get away from him, but he kept hold of her middle with one arm.

'If you go into hypersleep balanced across the seat like that, you'll regret it. When you wake up sore and stiff or dead from having your airway blocked you'll have wished you'd sat properly.'

She stilled against his side and lay her head back against the headrest next to his.

'Pod 45, initiate hypersleep.'

'Hypersleep cycle initiated.' Immediately the taste of the air in the pod changed. Vegeta felt its irresistible pull that suggested nothing was so bad that it couldn't be put out of his mind for a minute.

'What's hypersleep like?' the girl asked.

'It's like nothing. It's like the deepest sleep you've ever had.'

'Will I dream?' she slurred, and then her eyes closed and her head lolled against his own. She suddenly felt like warm butter in his arm. Confused but relaxed, Vegeta watched her until his own eyelids slid shut.

ooo

He awoke with a breath so deep it felt like his lungs were inflating from empty. As always when coming around from hypersleep he felt the disorientation from the absence of memory and waited patiently for it to return. A warm weight was nestled against his side, and when he looked down he saw the pink haired girl curled next to him, her head resting on his shoulder. She had one fist curled up at her face, with her thumb in her mouth. He grinned to see her, an unexpected gladness gripping him, and he was happy to find his arm around her waist. He squeezed her to him harder, beginning to rub his hand along her side.

'Mmm,' she said, her eyelids fluttering as she sucked harder on her thumb. She put her other hand on Vegeta's thigh to push herself up. Then she finally opened her eyes properly, her expression falling from contentedness to confusion to wariness, and that was all that was needed for Vegeta's memory to return, along with all the anxiety he'd forgotten while he slept.

She pulled herself upright and took her thumb out of her mouth, and tried to pull away from him again, but he kept his arm hard around her so she couldn't.

'That's Planet Frieza 79 up ahead,' he said, nodding out the ruby hatch window at the orb that almost entirely filled the view already. 'You'll want to keep a firm seat until we arrive in the pod bay.'

'Oh gods,' she hissed. 'I'm not ready!'

'Neither am I.'

The planet loomed closer; it's green and purple fields, barren, white rocky plains and the endless pale structures and avenues of the city all stained red by the glass of the window.

'Do you think I will ever get to my homeworld?'

Vegeta laughed without feeling any humour. 'I doubt it.'

'If you found a chance, could you send me home?'

He laughed again. She had no concept of what they were headed into! What did she think he was anyway? Some kind of personal hero?

'Girl, we will be lucky if we both survive to the end of today!'

She shook as yet more tears overtook her. He didn't bother to tell her off this time. It seemed to do no use anyway.

'Thank you for trying,' she said. 'Though I still don't know why you would bother after you and your people…they killed everyone I've ever known!'

'I didn't try to save you for your sake.'

'Then why am I still alive? Why am _I_ alive when everyone else is dead? I don't deserve to live any more then they did!'

'No one deserves to live! Stop spilling such nonsense!'

'But why did you save _me?_'

'I don't know! It was stupid, and I wish I hadn't done it.'

Her crying was reaching intolerable volumes again. He gave her a little shake. 'Pull yourself together, we'll be landing in minutes!'

'How can I stop crying? You don't know what it's like to have everyone you've ever known murdered! That bald giant killed my dad and _I was right there!_'

The temerity of her assumptions infuriated him. 'Don't I know? Don't I?' he yelled. 'You don't know anything of my life. My father is dead, my planet, and almost my entire race have been wiped out! Do you see me crying like a slapped babe? Shut the hell up and deal with it!'

This seemed to bring the tears up short into shuddering, gulping silence.

'How?' she asked eventually, looking him in the eye for once.

'Frieza said it was a meteorite storm, but…There's always been a rumour that my father and his elite guard were on Frieza's ship that night. And then they were all dead, and the planet too. I used to believe the meteorite story.'

'_Frieza?_ But you work for him! _Why?_ If he killed them all, how could you?'

He considered the mess of motivations that kept him bound to Frieza. He supposed a squishie from a rich, peaceful planet would never understand. 'I have no other choice,' he told her simply.

She stared back at him, in fact she rearranged herself so that she could look him more directly in the face, her cheeks wet and shining from her tears still.

'I think I know why you saved me,' she said, her chin trembling.

'More false assumptions?'

'Maybe. I'd rather be saved for a noble reason than a monstrous one.'

'I may be noble born, but I am not _noble_.'

She said nothing more, but kept looking at him with some expectation lingering in her eyes. He pulled her down against him again, gently, experimentally, and she didn't resist. Something in her had given itself over to him. It took him a moment to realise that it was her trust.

'You should ready yourself for impact,' he told her, his voice sounding strangely soft and breathless to himself. The longer she looked at him the stranger he felt – the same sort of tightness in his chest he'd felt when she had first stared at him from the slave sorting gate, but it was followed by surge of excitement between his legs which he certainly recognised. His fingers on her waist splayed and stroked her side as if they had a mind of their own. The girl lowered her eyes, but she didn't pull away from him. Aware that time was running out, Vegeta was suddenly desperate to touch that shimmery pink skin. He lifted his other hand and pulled his glove off with his teeth. Then slowly, as if not to startle her, trailed his fingertips down her bare arm. She shuddered but didn't move, just kept her eyes steadfastly on the front of his armour. He touched her face and wiped the back of his fingers through her tears, cupped her chin with his hand and dragged his thumb over her dark pink lips. He'd never felt so excited to touch a woman, but at the same time…

This was not all that he wanted.

The net of the pod catcher filled the hatch window, and he let her go to focus on keeping them both in the seat as they slammed into the net. The long poles of the pod catcher swung over and down towards the ground, eating the momentum of the pod with its spring loaded foundations. The pods had their own small gravity simulators which counteracted the effects of acceleration and deceleration to a degree, but they couldn't completely counteract the violent motions of landing. At its lowest point the poles of the pod catcher were hooked to stop them flinging the pod back out into space, and the pod rolled to the end of the net and off, down the chute to the pod bay. Vegeta kept his arms braced across the width of the pod to fight the slight dizzying spin, which could be felt over the pod's gravity field.

His heart beating fast now for a completely different reason, Vegeta turned to the girl and whispered, 'Remember, don't move or make a sound until I get you.' The darkness of the pod chute gave way to the light of the pod bay, and the pod came to rest gently on its cradle. Vegeta pulled his glove back on, climbed out of the seat and tucked the girl behind him, filling the hatch with his body before finally opening it.

He jumped out, closed the hatch and looked up and down the long hall. Forty tubes big enough to fire a pod up and down lined both sides of the room, inclined at steep angles. Two cradles down, Raditz was also climbing from his pod. A bored technician looked over at Vegeta and continued on his way down to the office at the end of the hall. A rumbling let him know that more pods were on their way. With a roaring of air and a bit of screeching metal, Nappa's pod appeared between Vegeta's and Raditz's, bouncing on the cradle's suspension before Nappa cracked the hatch.

'Fun times boys, and now we're home, fucking home,' Nappa grumbled as he clambered out.

Cui's pod slammed home next, in a slot on the opposite side of the hall. Vegeta wasted time stretching and pretending to work out a kink in his neck as Cui removed himself from his pod.

'Still with us, I see, Vegeta?' Cui called across the bay.

Vegeta leant against his pod's window and yawned. 'Sorry to disappoint.'

'What's this about?' said Nappa.

'Vegeta decided to take a side trip before going home. That's going in the report, by the way, Vegeta, so I hope your pod's log backs up your claim.'

'Fucking hurry up and go write it then!' snapped Vegeta. Cui grinned and walked off along the raised walkway towards the steps and the exit. 'I had some technical difficulties with my pod,' he told the other two. 'I was going to set down and check it out. It was nothing until Cui made it into something.'

'Gotcha,' said Raditz. 'Fuck, I'm starving. I need to get some food in me before I fall into a coma.'

When Vegeta didn't move they looked at him in confusion and he waved them on. 'Go on ahead, I'll catch you up. I have to fill out a maintenance report for this pod.'

Nappa and Raditz looked at each other as if to ask if they were both hearing this out of character display of consideration and conscientiousness, but they went on their way without a word. Vegeta moved quickly to the screen to the side of the pod cradle and typed in that the camera was faulty and that there was possibly an oxygen leak, as the oxygen levels depleted much faster than was to be expected for someone of his size. Then, after checking that nobody else was in the bay, and no tell tale rumbles indicated anything else coming down the pipes, he opened the hatch. The girl crouched in the back, her violet eyes round and terrified. Vegeta reached inside the pod and jabbed the camera with his finger, crushing it back into the housing and breaking it. At least that part of his cover story would be corroborated.

'Out, quickly,' he ordered. She scrambled to the edge, and impatient, he grabbed her and floated up over the handrail, down onto the concrete floor between the two raised walkways. He ran down the hall under the cover of the walkway a little way until he came to a vent covering in the wall. It was almost directly opposite the doorway into the bay, a flaw in his plan that he hadn't anticipated, but he had no time to spare as he tore the wide grill from the wall. It was an extraction vent, and just a few feet behind the grill a large fan whirled, sucking at their clothing now they were this close.

'Get in,' he said.

She didn't hesitate, but kept her eyes on him as she climbed over the concrete edge into the abscess.

'You _will_ come back for me?' she asked as he lifted the grill again.

Before he could tell her to get a move on the door behind him opened. Vegeta didn't even need to turn around to know who it was – the shocked gasp belonged to Zarbon, and he'd been caught red handed.

Instinctively he dropped the grill with a deafening clang and fled as fast as he could down the pod bay. Realising it was a dead end he swerved towards en empty pod chute, about to fly straight up it when a crushing weight clamped around his ankle.

'Vegeta, you little toad,' snarled Zarbon, pulling Vegeta towards him. 'Even _I_ didn't think you were _this_ stupid!'

Vegeta curled up to drive home a single blow to Zarbon's face, which slid off as if Vegeta's punch had all the weight of a paper dart.

'No, he gets stupider!' crowed Zarbon, and he delivered a debilitating kick to Vegeta's stomach that had him whooping for breath, then retching. He tucked the Saiyan under his arm and made his way back down the rows of pods to where Cui had his arms around the screaming, writhing Nimbrian girl.

Still struggling to breathe, Vegeta found it hard to concentrate on what they were saying, but Cui was busy telling Zarbon how he'd thought Vegeta had been acting strangely. Apparently Zarbon had been poised to greet the returnees in person, so anxious was he to hear Cui's report.

Zarbon laughed, and Cui looked like he'd just won the lottery.

'Let's go straight to Frieza,' Zarbon told his simpering junior. 'News like this can't wait. We'll see just how far his favouritism gets you this time, Vegeta.'

Zarbon took the most direct route, flying over the city and touching down inside the walls of the palace. He strode towards Frieza's main audience chamber, or the throne room as everyone else besides Frieza and his family called it.

'Lord Frieza is in conference,' warned one of the guards at the door.

'I know,' replied Zarbon airily. Not many besides Zarbon could have had the nerve to interrupt the Lord's business. The tall, handsome warrior paused to straighten himself after the short flight across the city, and then he reached over to take the girl from Cui by the scruff of her neck. She was struggling still, but Vegeta felt his dread double when she began screaming _his_ name!

'Vegeta, Vegeta, help me!'

'Shut up!' he shouted from where he hung from Zarbon's other arm. 'Your fuss is only going to make things worse!'

'What charming lover's talk,' laughed Zarbon, but his smile slipped away for a second as the girl nearly succeed in tearing her way out of the dress he held her by. Frowning, he adjusted his grip so that he now held her around her neck from behind, and both her struggles and her screams tapered off. 'Much better,' he said, nodding for the guard to open the door for him.

Inside, Frieza sat in a hovering chair, lounging as he spoke petulantly to a heavyset orange-skinned man on a large vid screen that also hung unsupported in the air opposite him. Behind him the large room's walls lowered and it became a wide terrace commanding a view over most of the city. Dodoria sat on the steps of a dais, complete with throne, which was ignored for now, polishing his boots, while a clerk sat at a desk in the corner, apparently doodling in a ledger.

'Casus, tell my father it is none of his business! You are _my_ physician, and _I_ pay you, not he,' Frieza was saying as they entered.

'But Lord Frieza, I'm left in a very awkward position – '

Frieza raised a finger, cutting him off, and looked over to see who had entered.

'Zarbon, I'm busy! This better be important.' And then his eyes alighted on Zarbon's burden. 'Vegeta?'

'Yes, my Lord. The little monkeys returned just a few minutes ago, and Vegeta here was caught in the act of unloading a rather illicit cargo.' Zarbon pushed the girl forward into Frieza's notice.

'A Nimbrian? And if I know my Nimbrian anatomy at all, a female Nimbrian!' Vegeta tried to look up defiantly at Frieza from the position Zarbon held him in, but what he saw only chilled him more. Frieza was quite plainly shocked. 'Vegeta! How could you? How could _you_? I thought I'd raised _you_ to be above such filthy things! And you brought it here, to my home!'

'There is no polishing of these Saiyan turds, my Lord,' offered Zarbon. 'You have always placed much more stock in Vegeta than he deserved.'

'Quiet, Zarbon!' snapped Frieza. 'Keep your gloating to yourself. And let Vegeta go. I wish to hear how he would explain himself.'

Vegeta found himself cast forward, sliding on his knees on the marble floor. Frieza levitated out of his chair to stand before him. _Shit, shit!_ What he said now could save his life or condemn it.

'Tell me this is some mistake, Vegeta,' Frieza invited, as Vegeta moved his numb lips, reaching for the right words still. 'Tell me this a mistake so that I won't have to rip my favourite little monkey prince limb from limb!'

'It is a mistake that she is _here_.' He began with the only small truth that could please Frieza at all. His mouth was completely dry and tasted awful after his retching earlier. 'I did not mean to bring her here to your home.'

'That is a lie,' said Cui, quietly, cowering at Zarbon's side for strength before his master.

'We saw him trying to secret her away in a ventilation shaft,' added Zarbon. 'It didn't seem very accidental to me.'

'Only because I knew how it would look if I were caught with her!' cried Vegeta. 'She was in my pod when we left Nimbus 3. I tried to make a detour to get rid of her, but Cui prevented me and overrode my pod's navigational control.'

'I knew it! I knew he was up to something!' said Cui.

Vegeta dared a look up at Frieza. He had his arms crossed and his face was still outraged. Little pink spots of fury had coloured his cheeks. 'And what was a female doing in your pod, Vegeta? Slipped and fell in?' The sarcasm in his voice was layered with hurt and betrayal. There was no getting off this hook.

For long moments Vegeta stared at the ground, wondering what he could say that would placate the jealous heart of the lizard.

'I just wanted to look at her...'

'Pah!' exclaimed Zarbon in obvious disbelief.

'So I told her I would get her a place on the slave ship…and I...'

'Oh for the love of my Father's icy heart, I _do not_ want to know what slithery, dirty things you did with her! _Why_ did you do it, Vegeta? Just tell me that!'

'I was…only…curious. It didn't mean anything.'

Frieza began to pace now, up and down before him. 'Curious? Curious! You really are a child still, aren't you, Vegeta? How can I trust that in one of my officers?' Suddenly he stopped his pacing and marched over to Zarbon. 'Let me have a look at the creature Vegeta found so _curious_.'

Vegeta felt alarm thrill at the base of his spine, almost as if he were the one in the immediate line of fire, and not the girl. He twisted to look over his shoulder as Zarbon let go of her and she stumbled into Frieza's grasp. The little tyrant was not much taller than her, and they were both painted in shades of pink and purple and white, but it struck Vegeta how wrong it was that they should both exist in the same universe. These two should never have met.

Frieza clutched her around the face, his fingers digging into her cheeks cruelly as he turned her face this way and that. She whimpered.

'I don't see what Vegeta saw at all,' said Frieza coolly. 'There's nothing interesting here at all. It's weak and stupid. I find it quite plain.'

Dodoria chose this moment to become involved in the proceedings. 'She looks like you, Lord Frieza. Don't you think, Zarbon?'

Vegeta was disgusted by the thought, as was Frieza.

'Dodoria! I should skin you for comparing this thing to me! It is nothing. Fluff of the universe!' He shoved her and she fell back on the marble floor.

'Vegeta!' she mewled, and Vegeta cringed to hear it. Frieza rounded on him again, his eyes wide with fury once more.

'That is rich!' he said. 'She's begging for mercy from _you!_ Don't tell me, Vegeta, that you're curious about _mercy_ and _heroism_ and all that nonsense as well?'

'No, my Lord!'

The girl began crying again. Frieza rolled his eyes and stalked away, back towards his chair. Vegeta followed him with his gaze and bizarrely found himself locking eyes with the huge head of the orange alien on the vid screen. The man was watching the whole drama avidly, and something like sympathy beamed down on Vegeta from over Frieza's shoulder.

'Really, it would be a mercy to _me_ to put the creature down right away,' Frieza snarled. 'No, not you, Zarbon!' he shouted, and Vegeta turned again to see that Zarbon was hesitating with his hand raised. The girl was sitting up, trembling as she looked across to Vegeta in utter desperation. 'Vegeta will do it,' Frieza said, his voice hissing with venom as he added, 'as she means _so little_ to him!'

Vegeta knew a moment of dizzying horror, but then it settled into resignation. It was almost comforting. He would kill her; there was no way out of it now that Frieza had asked. He would kill her as he should have done right at the beginning. He would kill her as he had killed countless others with hardly a thought.

But he saw her eyes go wider with dread as she watch his expression move from shock to apathy. Her pale pink skin turned paler and she fell back on her hands.

'No!'

'Vegeta,' said Frieza, still simmering with rage. 'Stop wallowing on the floor and do as I say already!'

Vegeta dragged himself up and raised his hand. The girl screamed in denial again, and jumped to her feet too, sprinting back to the closed doors only to find them sealed and too heavy for her to open. 'NO!' she shrieked again. Vegeta seemed to be finding it harder than usual to form his chi into anything useful. Her cry sliced through him, making it difficult to concentrate. She ran again, around the edge of the hall, past the clerk who ducked as Vegeta's palm tracked over him. She made it all the way out onto the terrace where she found that there was a sheer drop of eight stories in all directions. 'No! No! I don't want to die!'

'Enough of this racket already! Finish it, Vegeta, before I decide it's _you_ that is the problem I want cured forever!'

Vegeta grit his teeth and closed his eyes, summoning the power to his hand. He felt it at last, buzzing there, and he looked around for his target. She made another run for it, past Dodoria this time, who tripped her. She got to her knees, but stopped, her tears back again, in full pitiful flow, making her chest bounce up and down in grief in the dress he'd given her.

'Don't do it,' she sobbed.

An instinct he'd never felt before told him not to fire – a person knelt before him – something not to be destroyed. He closed his eyes tight shut against the sight of her cowering. He didn't want to see her die.

'Vegeta, you try my patience and my belief!'

Rage towards his master filled his chest and the ball of chi in his palm trebled in size without his meaning to. He would much rather be killing Frieza than her!

This wasn't fair!

'Vegeta, if I have to ask one more time, I will end you, and that is a promise!'

In anger Vegeta blindly pushed the chi outwards from him, and the impact was enormous. The floor shook and there was the found of falling masonry and Frieza screamed in further rage.

'You stupid monkey, you took out half the wall!'

Vegeta opened his eyes and the girl was gone, and so was the wall in front of him, leaving only empty sky and stars. It was almost as if she hadn't been there at all. He wondered how he ended up on his knees again, and got back up, finding himself shaking. The breeze was pushing the smell of concrete dust and singed flesh back with it. Vegeta felt his stomach clench.

'Come here, Vegeta,' snarled Frieza, his upper lip trembling with fury. Numbly Vegeta stepped towards him and then hesitated again, his backbone turning to water at Frieza's manner. He was scared for his life if he took another step close to the lizard lord. 'Don't make me repeat myself.'

Vegeta forced himself the last few steps to stand before him.

'I am too angry to know what to do with you right now,' hissed Frieza. Vegeta didn't even see the blow that caught him. All he felt was an explosion of pain and then all was blackness before he even hit the other wall and crashed through it, making a matching hole.

* * *

_Author's Note: Please leave a review! It all counts towards your good karma tally._


	3. Chapter 3 - Acai

_Author's Note: Thank you for all your reviews so far! I always want more, because I'm greedy. Feed me Seymour! Today's chapter is rather long and has a lot going on. Prepare thyselves!_

* * *

He awoke in his own cell, slowly dragged up through each layer of consciousness by the pain in his face and head. Breathing seemed to be about as much as he was up to at that moment. He could only see out one eye and his mouth tasted of blood. He wasn't dead, but he felt punished.

Slowly he moved his hands up to his face, discovering as he did, lesser injuries to his shoulder, his neck and the other side of his head. Gingerly he touched his face. On the right side it didn't feel like his own - it stood out too far, tight and puffy with swelling. The skin tingled and almost felt numb above the deeper pain of what he could already tell was a substantial injury. He tried to open his mouth and agony shot through his jaw. Teeth were loose against his tongue as he moaned, and he could feel blobs of clotted blood in his mouth. His whole mouth felt wrong – the wrong shape. He turned onto his less injured side, the movement sending sickening, dizzying pain through his head and jaw, and tried to spit the blood out. In the end all he could manage was to push the larger blobs out through his slack lips with his tongue.

On his right side his jaw was obviously broken, but his head felt broken too. His left side must've also taken a mashing when he'd hit the wall, or whatever he'd landed against which accounted for what felt like bad bruising on his shoulder. What had Frieza hit him with? His fist? His tail?

He started to slide away into semi-consciousness again, his brain seeking relief in insensibility. He closed his eyes and hoped that time alone would lessen the pain.

ooo

'Thank you for saving me,' she said, and she crawled into his lap in the pod. 'I really mean it.' She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips against his, but pain ripped through his face at the touch, and he jumped, coming too on his cot again. That hadn't happened. He was here on the other side of her death, and she'd never kissed him.

He drifted off again, his whirling subconscious serving up fleeting images and memories mixed with imaginings.

The girl fell to her knees crying in the throne room. 'Don't do it,' she whispered, and Vegeta felt anger and pain knowing what he was being forced to do.

'No, I won't do it, Frieza!'

'You would refuse _me?_' Frieza shrieked. 'I'll kill you for that, Vegeta!'

And then Frieza beat him around the head and face, over and over, each blow falling in time with his heartbeat. He would die, but at least he knew he'd saved her.

Slowly he rose to the surface of delirium again and realised that Frieza was not beating him. The pain from a single blow pounded through him and he had not saved her at all.

He groaned through it, wishing for this all to be over. Why hadn't he moved faster? Maybe Frieza would have been less heavy with his hand if he had killed her quicker. _Why did I pick her up in the first place?_ He asked himself bitterly. _Why? Why?_

An eternity of pain later he felt clearer headed. Testing the parts of himself that weren't injured he pushed himself upright on the bed and his head swam at the change of inclination. Then he pulled himself up by the bedpost. It was too much for his head and stomach. He shuffled into the tiny cubicle of a bathroom in the corner and vomited blood and bile into the sink and then sank, trembling, to sit on top of the toilet.

It felt like a single blow from Frieza had nearly killed him. He was not sure he'd ever enraged the lizard enough to unleash that much power on him before. Frieza had beaten him this badly and worse a number of times, but he'd always took his time about it.

He fell into another doze on the toilet. When he came round the next time he thought he perceived some lessening of the pain. Sensing something was missing he plucked a tooth from the sink and washed it off before he rinsed the rest of the mess down the plughole. He put the tooth back in his mouth and attempted to press it back into place. It was the most agony he'd felt to that point, but he persisted past trembling, white-faced nausea, because once he'd healed from this he'd be needing all his teeth.

He looked up into the small mirror over the sink to see how ugly Frieza had made him. His face was just as he expected, but horrifying nonetheless. One whole side of his face was a swollen purple slab, his right eye shut with it.

He made his slow way to the door and was not surprised to find it locked. Suffering through this injury without any kind of medical attention was obviously part of his punishment. He lay back down on the bed again, hoping for sleep to make the time and pain pass faster.

When he next awoke it was to feel the added gnawing of his hollow stomach. He couldn't work out how many hours, not counting the hypersleep, it had been for him since that last breakfast in the mess hall, but it felt like days. He lifted the mattress and pulled out one of the protein bars he had stashed for occasions like this. He felt alive enough now that he could probably break down the door of his cell, but he was pretty sure that doing so would only make things worse for himself. He found that chewing was impossible. It was painful enough just pushing tiny bits of bar through his teeth and sucking on them until they dissolved.

He wondered what Nappa and Raditz were doing. He imagined the piles of food they would have had before falling into restful sleep. Vegeta wished he'd gone with them and left the girl in the pod bay to whatever fate claimed her. No doubt they would have heard what happened to him by now. What an idiot he'd made of himself!

Both of them had found ways to deal with their sexual urges that worked for them. He disdained both their ways, but Vegeta's own impulses had nearly got himself killed. They looked wiser than he did right now.

He remembered Frieza's shock. His _disgust_. Vegeta felt ashamed. He been caught doing something dirty. He'd always tried to keep his nose clean when it came to discipline, hygiene and completion of duties. His defiance of Frieza was subtle, and at times non-existent. He wanted to be known as the perfect warrior and killer who toppled the Ice Lord, not the slovenly, rutting soldier who'd been beaten to death for not being able to control himself.

The majority of the PTO was male. The rest were either asexual or of a race so peculiar that copulation outside their species was impossible. Now and then soldiers would be caught out contravening Frieza's rule of celibacy and detachment, but it was widely accepted by everyone except Frieza that, away from any chance of being caught, his rules were flouted and lampooned. Those who travelled independently like the purge crews took their lust off-planet. Among the lowest ranked, who might never meet Frieza, friendships that were more than friendships flourished. The weak and friendless might also be predated upon by the strong and the cruel. Homosexual encounters were the open secret of the group barracks. Closer to Frieza and higher up the food chain it was much harder to hide any indiscretions.

Vegeta had never lived in the group barracks. Due to his status as a Prince and a hostage he'd always been afforded this own private cell in the officer levels – which had irritated his peers like Cui. He'd not had to fight his way up from the lowest rank to the purge crews, having already been stronger than most rank and file soldiers as a child. Likewise, as his attendants, Nappa and Raditz had been given their own room next to his. Vegeta had only ever heard rumours of the things that took place in the group barracks at night, and what he heard only revolted him. He, living on the third story, adjacent to the palace, was far and away above such _vile_ things. Frieza had even said so himself.

'I like what I see in you, Vegeta,' he had said once after Vegeta had helped dispose of an infestation of whores from one of the factory-town kitchens on the fringes of the city.

'What is that, my Lord?'

'Your purity of purpose. You're for killing and nothing more. You're not distracted by pointless urges to reproduce like lesser folk. You don't lower yourself to perversion. I like that.'

ooo

Vegeta awoke again wishing he had turned the light off. His head felt groggy as well as split in two now.

'Lieutenant Vegeta?' asked an unfamiliar voice from the other side of the door, and a polite knocking that must have been what woke him.

'Come – ah!' He stumbled on the pain of talking. 'Huck!' he swore, as best he could.

The door slid open and a couple of soldiers in palace uniform stepped in.

'We're to take you to the med bay for treatment,' said one.

Vegeta sagged with relief and then struggled to his feet again. One of the men wrapped an arm around his shoulder, but Vegeta shrugged him off violently. He wouldn't tolerate being touched by nobodies. Walking as casually as he could manage, flanked by his escort, Vegeta passed only a few persons of note and made it all the way out of the officer's quarters before he greyed out and fell to his knees on the pale stone flags. The guards dragged him the rest of the way to the med bay.

He next came to himself in the warm blue waters of a rejuvenation tank. On the edge of full consciousness with the sedatives still wearing off he wondered as he often had, if this was what it was like in the womb – warm, effortless, nurturing and protecting. Someone was standing outside his tank and they absently pressed the evacuation button. Vegeta's artificial womb drained away and he stepped out into the offered drying cloth.

Tanith, one of the familiar technicians that worked in this med bay was flicking through his notes, half on eye on Vegeta. He was a dark green alien with a long snout and a shock of orange hair.

'Severely broken jaw, fractured palette, fractured skull…it must've been a doozy, whatever it was, to fracture a Saiyan skull!' Tanith chuckled. Vegeta eyed Tanith in annoyance, but didn't say anything. Tanith had been working this bay for longer than Vegeta had been in the PTO, and had tended to Vegeta perhaps a hundred times before. He was one of the few people who Vegeta trusted, though they were hardly friends. It was Tanith's job to treat everyone as well as he could, and Vegeta respected and trusted that.

'You know we had to rebreak your jaw before we put you in the tank as it had already begun to set badly. It was a hell of a job for me and Whorrell. If you'd come to us sooner if would have made the job a lot easier.'

Vegeta rolled his eyes. The med bay technicians treated all the fantastic and gruesome injuries that came their way, and yet somehow maintained a wilful ignorance about the lives of their patients. Tanith's manner and comments always made it sound like the PTO was a boisterous summer camp, but Vegeta wasn't in the mood to tell the truth of what had happened to him. 'I came as soon as I could.'

'Well, anyway. Whatever caused it, no permanent damage has been done.' Tanith raised his hand to his scouter to hail someone. 'General Zarbon? This is Tanith from med bay 3…Yes, he's just awoken…Yes, Sir.'

Vegeta's already subdued mood lowered further. He dried himself in the middle of the bustling bay and dressed in the battlesuit, boots, gloves and armour he saw waiting for him on an examination table. Even though he was healed he felt weak and almost faint. He was so hungry he felt like he could eat the brown insectoid technician that scuttled past to take his used drying cloth away. Just that thought made his mouth water.

'General Zarbon is on his way here to collect you,' said Tanith, confirming what Vegeta had already guessed. Tanith shook his head. 'Always in a spot of bother, aren't you, young Vegeta?'

'Lieutenant Vegeta,' he corrected.

'Apologies, Lieutenant.'

When Zarbon arrived he gave Vegeta an icy glance, crossed his arms and just indicated with a nod of his head that Vegeta was to follow him. All Zarbon's glee at Vegeta's disgrace was gone, and in its place was cold anger.

'Where are we going, Sir?' he ventured as they headed back up and through the officer's quarters again. Zarbon didn't answer. As they passed close to his own cell they turned a corner and Nappa and Raditz nearly ran straight into them. Backing up, they bowed low to the both of them.

'General Zarbon,' said Nappa as he straightened. His eyes darted nervously to his prince and back to Zarbon. 'We were wondering how Lieutenant Vegeta is.'

Zarbon rolled his eyes and sighed. 'Well as you can obviously see for yourselves, he is fine.'

'Vegeta,' said Raditz timidly, obviously reluctant to speak in front of Zarbon. 'We heard some stuff…Is it true?'

'Well, isn't that the golden question?' said Zarbon, before Vegeta could answer.

'Is he going to be leading our next mission now that he's out of med bay, or is Cui still going to…?'

'Your lieutenant is in the shit, Saiyan,' said Zarbon. 'Cui will still be leading your next mission.'

Vegeta felt a new blow to his pride. _His_ men lead by someone else? Led by _Cui_ of all people? It was plain from the looks on their faces that Nappa and Raditz weren't pleased about this either.

'When is this?' asked Vegeta.

'In just a few hours,' said Nappa.

'A few hours? But why would you be sent out so soon?'

'It's not that soon, Vegeta. It's most of three days since we got back.'

'Enough babble,' said Zarbon. 'All I hear is "Ooh, ooh, ooh!"' he said in crude mimicry of a monkey call, and he walked on, forcing Vegeta to follow. They made their way into the palace, and Vegeta figured they were going to see Frieza. He did not want to see Frieza. If his master was going to kill him he wished that at least he could die on a full stomach.

Zarbon led him to Frieza's personal apartments. The guard on the door bowed to them, then pressed his scouter and said 'They're here.' He listened to whoever replied and nodded. 'Please go right in, Lord Frieza is expecting you.'

A fine prickling of sweat was coming out over Vegeta's skin as they entered the plush rooms. They were brightly lit by both natural and captured sunlight, and furnished mostly in white with splashes of purple, black and blue – Frieza's favourite colour palette. Zarbon led them across the thick, white carpet of a large sitting room onto the marble tiles of a dining area before some floor-to-ceiling windows. Frieza sat at one end of the oval table, patting his mouth with a napkin, abandoning his meal for now. It was not a large table – it was only his personal dining table, not like the huge and rarely utilised formal table in the palace's dining hall. Frieza didn't throw many parties.

'Sit, both of you,' said Frieza calmly. Vegeta sank gratefully into one of the three free chairs. If he'd had to stand he wasn't sure he'd be able to hide his shaking. Zarbon took the one furthest away from Frieza, so Vegeta was stuck between the two of them.

'Have you had lunch yet, Zarbon?' asked Frieza.

'I have, my Lord, thank you.'

'What about you, Vegeta? I've heard you never turn down a meal.'

Vegeta could hardly believe his luck. He couldn't rule out it being a trick of Frieza's but his overlord was right – he wasn't going to turn down a meal in the state he was in.

'I have not eaten yet, my Lord.'

Apparently servants were hovering to the side, awaiting these words. Silently they swooped in, laying an array of cutlery before Vegeta and then placing a silver plate before him with some sort of salad on it. No, not silver - platinum. Salad was never his first choice, but the rush of saliva when he saw this one nearly had him drooling down his front. Hesitating, he looked to Frieza for permission to begin.

'Thank you, my Lord.'

'Don't wait on me, Vegeta, I'm already on my third course.'

Attempting to bring to mind his long-ago lessons on dining etiquette he picked the salad fork and knife and, even though he was shaking with anticipation, slowly loaded the fork with a mouthful. He'd been in this room a few times before, and sat in this chair even, with its leather upholstery as soft as baby's skin (perhaps it even was baby skin?), and he knew from experience that Frieza was a stickler for table manners. He chewed carefully and swallowed slowly, but lost no time in filling his next forkful. He had to grip the fork tighter to stop it shaking on the way to his mouth. The salad was of white and purple leaves, pickled green vegetables and crumbly white curds dressed with salt and some fragrant oil. Perhaps it was just his hunger, but not only was it the best salad he'd ever tasted, it was registering pretty high on his all-time favourite dishes list.

Vegeta finished his salad before the other two bothered him again. They talked instead of the disappointing price a recent planet auction fetched while Frieza picked at his plate. The silent servants drifted in again, clearing Vegeta's salad plate and replacing it with a bowl of soup. They also brought glasses of red liquor for Vegeta and Zarbon, and refilled Frieza's glass. The soup was hot and savoury and green, but Vegeta felt no lessening of his nerves as he resisted the urge to shove the entire bowl of the soupspoon into his mouth like a commoner.

Finally he felt Frieza's eyes rest on him.

'Incredibly resilient, the Saiyans,' Frieza observed coolly.

Vegeta finished his spoonful of soup and set the utensil down so that he could give the lizard his full attention.

'Their strength lies in violence, but it seems as if they are even better at taking hits than dealing them,' Frieza continued. 'I hardly know whether I meant to kill you or not with that strike, but I now find myself somewhat glad that I didn't.'

Vegeta felt a chill travel up his spine. Yes, he had been that close to death after all. Frieza continued to look at him expectantly for a moment and he realised that some response was wanted. 'Why, my Lord?'

'Well, I finally had the chance to read the report from that young fellow, your supervising officer. Reading between the lines, and taking into account his obvious personal dislike of you, it seems as if you carried out an efficient and effective mission on Nimbus 3. I have all the scientists I wanted and all the slaves, with no collateral damage and in less time than I expected. In short, I can't argue with your results.'

'Thank you my Lord.'

Frieza's lip curled up at one side in a snarl and he looked away to sip his wine in agitation. 'Don't _thank_ me Vegeta. I'm not in the mood.'

Unsure of how to respond to that, Vegeta held his tongue, and for a long and very uncomfortable minute, silence reigned in the apartment. Vegeta looked longingly at the last bit of the soup in his bowl, but suddenly Frieza erupted into speech again.

'Am I to believe you that you did not intend to smuggle that creature home with you?'

'Yes, my Lord. I knew it would not be allowed and I wouldn't break your rules like that. I know the consequences and the likelihood of discovery.'

'Well, it's true that you are not normally stupid, little princeling. But you left out the part about how your great respect for me and my rules would prohibit you from doing such a thing.'

Vegeta felt his hair stand up all over his body in fright as Frieza pointed out his oversight. No, he didn't respect Frieza or his rules, but the sake of his skin he should _pretend_ to.

Frieza sipped the liquor again, as did Zarbon. Vegeta pretended to sip his – the stuff was very strong and he was liable to cough and splutter on it. The way this conversation was going he also wouldn't rule out the possibility that it was poisoned or laced with truth serum. As he set the glass down he almost knocked it over as Frieza spoke again.

'You also seemed to have had no issue with breaking my rules when you were out of my sight and thought you would never be caught. I am no great fool, Vegeta. I know what some in my army get up to when they're unsupervised and off-planet. I have no choice but to tolerate what those who go in my name do when the impulse grips them. In this case it seems as though, had the supervising officer not been present, you would have offloaded your trifle before you came home, and I would never have been the wiser about whatever disgusting acts and urges you indulged in on Nimbus 3. And do you know what? I rather wish that had been the case!

'I am disappointed in you, Vegeta! Very disappointed! If it had been Quark or Jube or one of that rabble, I'd have hardly been surprised, but it was _you, _Vegeta, from whom I expected more. For that alone I could have killed you! The illusion is shattered. In regards to your baser nature you're no better than the worst that have passed through my army.'

Vegeta hated Frieza, but right now his hatred was focused on the way the lizard could make him feel this shame and humiliation. He stared fixedly at his soup bowl until a deft handed servant whisked it away.

'But like I said. I can't argue with your results. In regards to _those_ you are far and above the majority of my army, Vegeta, which is the only reason you sit here. Or perhaps I still harbour some vestigial fondness for you that I can't be rid of?'

Frieza resumed sipping his liquor. It seemed he could drink it endlessly, like water. Another plate was placed before Vegeta. It was rare-roasted meat, slavered in some kind of creamy sauce.

'Aren't you going to touch your main, Vegeta?' asked Frieza eventually. 'It's an insult to my hospitality for you to not even try it.'

Dutifully Vegeta sliced into the meat and back to eat quickly, hardly tasting it. He could tell it was soft and juicy, which was good because it meant it didn't get stuck in his dry throat. He just wanted to get out of this room and safely back to his own cell, or even better, his pod.

'I always said that he would be trouble,' Zarbon drawled. 'Vegeta thinks the world works for him and not the other way around. That sense of entitlement should have been knocked out of him a long time ago.'

'Well, Zarbon,' said Frieza snidely. 'I gave him to _you_ under your direct command when he first came to us, so I wonder whose failure this really is we're seeing now?'

Vegeta tried not to smile at Frieza's rebuff, just kept his eyes on his plate as he systematically sliced, chewed and swallowed his meal. The instant he laid down his knife and fork they and the plate were gone. Frieza's plate was taken away too and his glass topped up. The tyrant tossed a napkin from his lap onto the table and sighed, leaning back.

'If I followed every murderous urge I had, I wouldn't have an army left to do my bidding,' he said. 'I had high hopes for you, Vegeta. You were my perfect little killing machine. It was like the second-coming of Zarbon. Now I don't know _what_ to think of you.'

Vegeta swallowed down on his pride – a familiar bitterness these days. 'I won't let you down again, my Lord.'

'No, you won't, because the next time really will be your last. Speed, efficiency and effectiveness are important values to me, Vegeta, and so you remain important, but do _not_ let me down again.'

'My crew are scheduled for another purge run in just a few short hours. With your permission I will lead an exemplary mission.'

Frieza made a face and scoffed.

'No,' said Zarbon, sounding more pissed off than was warranted. 'You're suspended from active duty. The other officers will cover you for now.'

'But why?' said Vegeta.

'Because you broke rules and you're still in trouble.'

'But Lord Frieza just said I was…' What had Frieza just said? 'If I'm to prove myself once more I must be able to work again.'

'You broke my trust in you, Vegeta,' Frieza said. 'You've been going behind my back. You've developed a disturbing _curiosity_ for interfering with females. Don't think I didn't notice either, what a hard time you had putting that Nimbrian down! I can't believe you would hesitate over a direct order from me because of some passing sensation for _that!_ You seem to have a lack of respect for me that I cannot tolerate. How can I trust you? Answer me that.'

Vegeta stared back at him, his mouth open, but no answer coming to him. Another dish was slid discretely before both himself and Frieza. It was some frozen confection of white and pink and congealed-blood red.

'Quite how you will regain my trust, I do not know, Vegeta. But until then you will not be leaving this planet.'

'Please, Lord Frieza –'

'Leave me now. I find I am still quite irritated with you.'

Vegeta stood and put his spoon back down on the tablecloth as Frieza took a bad-tempered swipe at the frivolous whipped peaks on his plate.

'But I haven't even tried dessert,' Vegeta attempted to joke.

'I hardly think you deserve dessert, do you?' Frieza shouted back at him.

Stiff backed, Vegeta bowed and left the apartment, Zarbon at his elbow.

They walked in silence back to his cell on the third floor. Vegeta could sense Zarbon's bristling anger, but he was too far gone bathing in his own fury to care until they stopped outside his door and it slid open. Before he could step inside Zarbon gripped him by the back of his armour and threw him inside, then followed him in, the door sliding shut behind them. Vegeta fetched up against the steel desk, his thighs banging against it and began to turn to snarl at Zarbon, but Zarbon was too quick. He closed the space between them, shoved a hand between Vegeta's shoulder blades and pushed him face down on the desk. Then he swiftly pulled one of the Saiyan's arms behind him to the point of dislocation to persuade him not to struggle.

'General?' he gasped in shock, but Zarbon just gave him a vicious jerk of the arm than had him grinding his teeth in pain.

'Don't "General" me, you piece of shit. We both know you don't give a rat's arse about proper respect for your superiors.'

Vegeta's heart sank as he realised he was a long way from out of the woods yet.

'This may not come as a surprise, Vegeta, but I have _never_ liked you.'

It was not, and the feeling was mutual. 'Just hurry up and say what you're going to say!'

Zarbon's grip tightened and he pulled on Vegeta's arm until it wrenched free of his shoulder socket. Vegeta couldn't stop the moan of pain that escaped his lips.

'That should be enough said, but as I don't hold your intellect in as high esteem as Frieza, I'm going to spell things out for you,' Zarbon said. 'I'm your commanding officer, loathe as I am to give you as much attention and mind as Frieza forces me to, and what you do reflects on me. What just happened in Frieza's chamber was humiliating for me, and I will not have it again, do you understand? I don't know _why_ he continues to hold such a soft spot for his pet monkey, but I don't share it, and even when he hands you second chances you don't deserve, understand that you still need to answer to me! I own you as much as he does. As long as Frieza wishes to keep you around I won't upset him unduly by killing you, but if you make me look bad in front of him again I might chance it. I will certainly make you _wish_ you were dead!'

Zarbon crouched lower over Vegeta, and then Vegeta felt something that horrified and outraged him – Zarbon was pressing his crotch against the back of his pants, hard enough to crush Vegeta's legs painfully against the edge of the desk, which was starting to buckle under the stress.

'If you can't control your urge to fuck things up, I'll fuck you up, just try me. You might not enjoy it as much as poking your little Nimbrian girl though.'

'You're not serious?' Vegeta gasped. 'You can't…You wouldn't!'

'Wouldn't I?' Zarbon ground his hips against him suddenly, and Vegeta clenched his buttocks instinctively against the flaccid mound of flesh that was starting to harden and throb as Zarbon continued to speak. 'Boo-hoo, you were a prince of nowhere once. Guess what? I was a prince once, too, and that pales in comparison to being Frieza's right hand. And you, you're still nothing but an irritation to me – a lowly scab of a junior officer. For a survivor of a hairy, smelly, stupid race who lives only by the whim of its masters you have an unseemly amount of pride, self-respect and sense of entitlement. I'll take all that away from you and see how you go. I'll split that virgin anus of yours and see if you don't fall down a few notches. You don't get to choose who you fuck. _I do_.'

'I'll tell Frieza!'

Zarbon actually laughed at this. 'Try it. It's been, what? A dozen years? You're a new addition to Frieza's collection. I've been his General and shining star for thirty years. It'll be your disgraced word against my iron clad one. Who do you think he'll believe? And then afterwards there would be a terrible training accident – very sad to lose the lying, sneaking monkey boy so young.'

'But you just said you wouldn't kill me!'

'Well, if you don't keep your mouth shut I'll risk Frieza's moping. So, do we understand each other, monkey boy? I want all the respect and obedience that is due to me, that Frieza is too indulgent to realise you fake. I want you to stop running around me to Frieza every time you don't like the way the cookie crumbles. And I want you to realise that there is nothing and no one outside this army for you. The universe owes you nothing. Got it?'

He accompanied this last with another sharp thrust of his hips and Vegeta nodded in desperation. 'Yes, Sir!' Finally Zarbon released him, but Vegeta just crouched to the floor in front of the broken desk, keeping his back to Zarbon. His heart was hammering. He couldn't believe what had just happened. And who would believe him? And who could he tell? No one! No one!

Zarbon was straightening his stockings. 'Next time I see you, you will address me with proper respect, and you will mean it.'

'Yes, Sir.'

Zarbon left and Vegeta dragged himself to the wall, clenching his teeth against the pain as he popped his shoulder back into place like Nappa had taught him. Then he lay on his bed, pulled the blankets up around him and felt the tension in his chest release for a second with a little sob.

'Don't you dare cry,' he told himself, imagining his father looking down on him sternly. 'Are you a babe, or are you a Saiyan?'

And so he lay, staring dry-eyed at the wall, hatred, fear and self pity twisting him like a like a wind-withered leaf around the ache in his chest.

ooo

The girl visited him in his dreams again that night.

'Thank you for saving me from this place,' she said as they ran through a tunnel under Frieza's city. It occurred to Vegeta eventually that this was an odd thing for her to say as she seemed to be the one saving him, pulling him along by the hand, guiding the way as they rushed through the labyrinth. They made it to the pod bay and he lifted her into the mouth of an open pod.

She turned, her hands on his shoulders. 'I didn't think you would risk sending me home after what Frieza and Zarbon said.'

'They don't own me,' said Vegeta, scowling at the thought. 'They don't control me.'

'But Zarbon-'

'They'll never know!'

'Come with me, Vegeta!'

'I can't.'

'Yes, you can!'

She somehow lifted him into the pod, and he let her. The hatch door closed behind him, staining everything in the pod soft red and pink, and he was wrapped in the padded, warm safety of the pod and her body. He sighed, feeling his troubles drop away with the ground as the pod took off, and all was happiness and warmth and pleasure until he woke in the dark with his hand on his dick and a wet spot on his belly.

He lay there, thinking about the dream for a long time afterwards. He didn't want to be dreaming impossible things. She was dead – he had killed her – why was she still in his head? His current situation was so dire he'd rather dream of realistic, attainable things rather than such fluttery, painful nonsense, but the fleeting happiness of the dream was hypnotic, and he couldn't let it go.

Eventually he got up and headed to the mess hall to beat the morning rush for breakfast.

He spent another hour after breakfast in a rejuvenation tank to heal the last of the damage from his dislocated shoulder. When he got out he faced a day with no plan and no companions.

He discovered that suspension from active duty really was a punishment. There was nothing to do in his room, and he had no hobbies, unless you counted training. His usual training partners being gone, he had to go down to the training arenas and throw his name in the schedule for a sparring partner. There was a problem with that though.

The blue-skinned alien running the arena checked down the list on his screen. 'No, no, no, no, too weak, too weak, black mark, black mark, too weak, another black mark…' The coordinators would only match up a pair to spar if the couple was within the same order of magnitude of power level. There were plenty of others within that bracket to fight Vegeta, but the problem was nearly all of them had listed themselves as unavailable to fight the prince. After a number of fatal encounters in the ring he had a black mark next to his name on most people's dance cards. They didn't trust him not to kill them. Even many of those a little stronger than Vegeta wouldn't fight him, just in case. And there were not many about in the general arenas who were a _lot_ stronger.

'Oh, here's one!' said the coordinator at last. 'Jeice.'

'Who's that?'

'A new lad. I'll introduce you.'

Next to the stone bleachers a young man with a burst of fluffy, long white hair and bright orange-red skin was warming up. He looked a similar age to himself, and not much bigger. He smiled good-naturedly as the two approached.

_I'll wipe the floor with him_, Vegeta assured himself. _This will be fun_.

'G'day, I'm Jeice. Kinda new, haven't seen you around yet,' he said, offering his hand. Vegeta ignored it and looked askance at the coordinator.

'Right,' said the blue skinned man. 'Lieutenant Vegeta, this is Jeice, unranked as yet. Jeice, this is Lieutenant Vegeta. He's been with us a while. You've been matched for a spar. Are you willing?'

'Am I? Yeah, I'll spar!' said the kid.

_Urgh!_ thought Vegeta. Jeice's enthusiasm was annoying. 'Come on then.'

He led them to a clear spot, which widened as people saw who was making his way onto the arena. Soon they had half the oval to themselves. Jeice made some silly balletic bow that must be part of his culture's fighting etiquette.

'Just start!' barked Vegeta.

He did, and they made some precursory moves towards one another – basic, standard forms which they both blocked and dodged with lazy ease.

'More,' commanded Vegeta. If they were in the same order of magnitude Jeice had to be able to offer more than _this_.

'Can do.'

Like flicking a switch, Jeice's power and speed increased dramatically. Even though Vegeta had asked him for more he was almost taken by surprise. He was able to counter it all, but there was a second when Jeice almost got through his guard.

'I haven't met you before, but I'm pretty sure I've heard of you,' said Jeice, dancing to evade a combination of kicks from Vegeta.

'What have you heard?' Vegeta said, eager to hear what it might be.

'Well,' replied Jeice, pausing to throw aside Vegeta's punch. For a moment they halted as Vegeta waited for his answer. 'Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it. They just sound like malicious rumours. Repeating them back to you is probably not the best way of making friends.' He grinned at Vegeta, but Vegeta flushed with chagrin. Had this guy heard nothing of Vegeta's achievements? His ruthless reputation? His cleverness? Sure that he was being made fun of, Vegeta suddenly went on the attack again, anger adding violence and lowering his restraint.

'Don't worry about it,' he snarled. 'We are _not_ going to be friends!'

He got a fist in Jeice's side, knocking him sideways, and then immediately followed through with a headlong attack. One, two, three punches connected before Jeice began to counter them and fight back. 'You're a poodle-haired moron,' he told Jeice, 'and I doubt you'll ever be anyone worth knowing around here.' Suddenly a kick Vegeta had misjudged caught him under the chin and he sailed up and backwards, falling almost all the way to the arena floor before recovering. To his fury many of the onlookers cheered when they saw this.

Jeice floated down until he was level with Vegeta, and his voice carried around the whole oval as he said 'Right then, mate. It seems like at least one of the rumours is true. How about we really get this fight started?'

A few minutes later Vegeta realised he probably should have asked the coordinator what Jeice's power level was before he antagonised him.

ooo

He spent the rest of the day in a rejuvenation tank in med bay. He should have backed down after the first ten minutes, but his pride had kept him going until Jeice was the one to end the session, for fear of killing him.

Jeice's mercy was unutterably depressing to him, and as it was the first thing that occurred to him as the tank drained he lingered on it the rest of the night.

'Less than two hours between leaving here and being carried back,' Tanith teased. 'That's got to be a new record. You know, there's still several hours before midnight – you could make it a hat trick!'

Vegeta growled dangerously, but otherwise pretended to ignore the medic, and Tanith went on his way, oblivious to what thin ice he'd just been skating on.

The next day was possibly worse. Avoiding the scene of his humiliation the day before he trained in the solo rooms indoors, hitting targets, striking the clunky training robots in the right place at the right time, lifting the weights, making the jump, yawn. It was quickly boring, being not much of a challenge for someone of his power level. Still, he kept at it, because without this there was nothing he could do, and sitting through an entire day of nothing but the constant thoughts in his head like he had spent the last night was something he wanted to avoid.

After maybe the hundredth lap of the automated training sequence he became aware of an observer at the glass wall that made up one side of the room. Zarbon was watching.

'Turn the program off,' he told the room. Robots, targets and weights slowed to a stop.

He left the room quickly, not wanting to be trapped in there with Zarbon. His General leant against the glass cockily, with one hand on his hip and his ankles crossed.

'Vegeta?' he prompted.

Vegeta bowed. 'Good day, Sir.'

Zarbon laughed, 'Good day? Maybe for me. What a sight though – Vegeta all alone on the gym equipment. I heard that no one wanted to play with the monkey prince.'

'There were not many suitable sparring partners.'

'Oh, there was Jeice though, but the two of you didn't hit it off. Why am I not surprised? Promising prospect, that Jeice; one of Dodoria's, sadly.'

Vegeta barely held back his dismay. Zarbon had heard about yesterday?

'I'll spar with you if you like, Vegeta.' Zarbon's eyelids lowered until he was peering coyly down at Vegeta. Vegeta felt panic bloom in his chest. He didn't want to fight Zarbon, and he certainly didn't want to do whatever Zarbon might be hinting at if he wasn't talking about fighting!

'No! Thank you, Sir.'

'You'll spar with me if I say you'll spar with me,' said Zarbon coldly. 'I own you, remember?'

'Yes,' Vegeta croaked, almost choking on the fear and frustration and humiliation tied up in the admittance. 'In the arena, Sir?'

Zarbon huffed. 'I'm not going to really fight you, Vegeta. It would be a complete waste of my time. I was just making sure this new attitude adjustment was taking hold.' He pushed himself from the wall and swept past Vegeta, giving him a condescending pat on the head as he went. 'Good boy.'

ooo

Still dressed in only his sweaty training shorts, a sense of being trapped drove Vegeta out into the city. He wandered the neat and sterile plazas, crossing paths with couriers, servants, technicians, and the occasional slave. People generally hurried in Frieza's city, as they were always there to do a job, and if anyone ever had any free time they usually kept that fact to themselves. They rushed around Vegeta like he was the sick ant on the ant trail. He had no purpose or direction, other than wanting to get away from Frieza and Zarbon and the rest of the pricks in their army.

Out here amongst the industry and service branches of the PTO, not many people recognised him. A few did, perhaps from PTO bulletins or because their business brought them into his circles. It was soothing, in the way that spending time with a bunch of dumb barn animals was soothing. No one approached him, addressed him, or looked at him twice. He wandered for hours at street level, until eventually he caught sight of something that snapped himself out of his listlessness – a Nimbrian woman.

She was brassy skinned and had green hair, and she was dressed in a slave's tunic and apron, but he was sure she was a Nimbrian. She was carrying a plastic bucket that she's just emptied down an outside drain, and he followed her along an open concourse and into a wide door of a large building. He was so intent on her that he didn't even notice the slave guard standing inside the door.

'Hey, what business do you have here?' said the tall, obese guard. The slave guards were a joke amongst the PTO army. They were comprised of asexuals, unfuckables and castrati, and they wore light armour, ugly red battlesuits and lumpy red helmets. Threatening poorly behaved soldiers with slave guard duty was common for sergeants, and actually not an empty threat, as Frieza had sentenced many men to castration and slave guard duties. Ironically, it was quite a common punishment for trying to take advantage of Frieza's slaves. Many of these forced eunuchs claimed that they didn't miss a thing, and that having no bollocks or sex drive was quite a weight off their shoulders, but it didn't stop it being feared as a punishment second only to death. With a shudder Vegeta realised that Frieza could have offered _this_ to him as his punishment.

'No business,' said Vegeta.

'Well, clear off then. These are slave quarters.'

'I didn't know.'

'Well, now you do.'

Vegeta turned away, and realising how hungry he was at last, he ducked down to the underground levels and worked out which lines he should take to get back to the officer quarters.

He wasn't sure when the idea first came to him, but perhaps it was there, as he perched on the open wagon of a train as it sped along the tunnels back to the palace. It seemed to have been growing slowly in his mind and now it began to take on the glimmer of the irresistible.

_They don't own me. They don't control me. They'll never know._

_ooo_

The next day he wandered the city again, subtly working out the logistics of his plan while he also pondered if he would follow through with it. He travelled the underground backwards and forwards, and then he _flew_ down the tunnels between trains. He was much faster than they were. His problem seemed to be catching up to trains rather than being caught by them. He did all this without his scouter – risking leaving it in his room, just in case he was being tracked. He watched from rooftops, scoped alleyways, and then in the evening he took a bath in the officers' private bathroom. He was prepared at every point to drop the idea, but in fact nothing seemed to come up that seemed insolvable. It was his only occupation, and it's planning filled his mind, displacing many unhappier thoughts. Frieza and Zarbon might think they owned him, and for now he would have to let them think that, but he would defy them nonetheless!

The next day he checked schedules, checked and double-checked his observations from the day before, figured out timing and then he booked an hour in the officers' bathroom on his floor in the late evening of the next day.

On the third day he spent the morning watching the comings and goings in the buildings he knew Nimbrians were being housed. He was unconsciously looking for someone, but the moment he realised who it was he grew angry with himself and nearly decided to quit this game due to his own apparent insanity.

He went back to the indoor training rooms and made sure plenty of people saw him working out, and went to the mess hall, ate and had an argument with the cook. As the hour drew near he retreated to his room.

'This is foolish,' he told himself. 'You shouldn't do this, it's dumber and even more senseless than taking her in the first place.' But he felt a strange excitement at the challenge. He wanted to try.

An hour after sunset he walked into the bathroom, locked the door and ran a hot bath while he stripped to just his underwear, ditching his scouter too. As soon as the bath was full he floated up to the tiny window in the wall and opened it as wide as it would go. It was frosted glass, and only there to help ventilate the room as it let hardly any light in, even in the middle of the day. If he couldn't fit through it his plan would be over before it began, and he almost prayed that he wouldn't fit, but as he pushed his head and shoulders through he found he was still small enough, and his shoulders narrow enough to squeeze out. Now he was committed.

He dropped to the ground of the tight gap between the building and the palace wall and ran along until it joined a wider alley. In the middle of the flags of this one was a grate that ventilated the subway below. He listened and then lifted it, carefully lowering it over his head.

He trailed a wagon in the dark, hiding at points and waiting in the recesses of the ceiling for the coast to be clear before switching lines. It didn't take long at all before he was exiting another grill, this one behind a mess hall for the slave guards. He found the window into the ablutions block, and crept close, listening carefully to figure out if anyone was inside, and the moment there didn't seem to be he ripped out one of the bars over the window and slithered inside. He perched himself atop a cubicle against the wall and near the door, so that people wouldn't notice him as soon as they entered. Fate was smiling on him; the next guard to enter was a man not too much larger than himself. He waited while the man turned the shower on and undressed, and then he leapt over the stalls and came down with his foot on the man's head. He crumpled to the floor. Vegeta might have killed him, but he didn't hang around to check. Instead he stole the man's uniform, scouter and helm and squeezed back out the window.

Two minutes later a rather short slave guard sloped into the nearest slave house, nodding at the guard on the door casually as he passed. The refectory on the ground floor was still bustling, even at this hour, as the slaves' shifts began and ended at all different times of the day. Vegeta kept to the edge of the room in the shadows of the columns and looked for a candidate.

They were all females in here, a mixture of Nimbrians and others, and they were scattered in ones and twos and small groups at the long tables. He wasn't sure what he was looking for...pink hair maybe? None of them had pink hair. At last though he thought he spotted what he wanted. A girl at a table close by scraped the bottom of her bowl with her spoon and then sucked the spoon clean. Then she threw the spoon into the bowl in disgust.

'Don't they understand that if they fed us better we'd be healthier, and could do more work?' she said loudly to her companions. And then she looked daringly in his direction, and he realised that this speech was intended for his benefit too.

He stared back at her, intrigued. She had golden skin, not pink, and her hair was gold with green streaks, but she had the same round, violet eyes. As he stared, her own glare wavered into a frown, and then a blush came to her cheeks and she looked away, confused. He had his prey marked.

He moved on, down the hall to the door that led to the rest of the dormitory, and waited there for her to pass, which she did, hardly a minute later.

'Come with me, slave.' he said, hoping this was a normal kind of thing for a slave guard to say.

She jumped in fright and then said 'But I haven't done anything wrong!' Her companions milled around her, looking nervous.

'Move on,' he told them. 'I only want her.'

'But…'

He took hold of her arm and led her out the front door.

'What have I done? Where are we going?' she said, her voice loud and fearful.

'Quiet! I will tell you soon.'

He led her to the nearest subway entrance, saw one platform was occupied and hauled her over to the other. He clamped a hand over her mouth and whispered to her not to make a sound. After a minute a train pulled into the other platform and the waiters got on board. Vegeta hoisted her into his arms.

'What?' she cried. 'What are you doing?' She tangled with him, her weak body trying to escape his grasp. It was hard to hold onto her without hurting her - in the end he had to use his tail to help hold her in place.

'Shut it! I'm trying to help you!'

'You're trying to carry me off! Aren't you a eunuch like the rest?'

'No,' he said, taking to the air and following the train down the tunnel. 'I'm not a eunuch and I'm not a slave guard either. I'm here to rescue you.'

'Rescue…Rescue me!'

She sagged gasping against him, her arms wrapping around his neck, all of a sudden happy to held by him.

'Who are you?' she said. 'You're not Nimbrian. Are you part of a resistance?'

Vegeta scoffed at the idea of a resistance on Frieza's own planet. 'No. There is no resistance.'

'Then who are you?'

'It doesn't matter.'

'Then why?'

Vegeta hesitated. 'That doesn't matter either. Now be silent, or we'll be detected.'

He changed lines at a station, and then changed lines at another station before finally arriving at the one they needed to exit by. He took them up into the plaza outside the pod bay, which was deserted at this time of day, with no missions coming or going. He made her walk across the plaza as if he were escorting her, although no slave and slave guard would have any reason to be so close to the centre of the city at this time. As they approached the security cameras on the outside of the building Vegeta pulled his helm down as low over his face as it would go, and then pointed a finger, firing a tiny charge of chi at each, not big enough to damage them, just to swivel them on their mounts so that they faced outwards from the door. He checked the scouter, and only two low-powered people were inside – probably the technicians. Trying to be as quiet about it as possible, when the door asked for biometrics to be presented for entry, he smashed the control panel and wrenched the doors ajar. He pushed himself in and raced down the long, narrow foyer into the pod bay aisle, then barrelled down that until he located the two shocked technicians. He blasted one and broke the neck of the other, then picked them both up and stuffed them into an open pod where they would be hidden a little longer. Hurrying back towards the door he saw the girl had finally made it into the pod bay proper and now rushed towards him.

'I, I can't believe you're doing this,' she said. She was a little older than the last girl he saw, and a little taller. In fact her eyes were level with his.

'Neither can I,' he said. 'Come. That should have bought us a little time, but we should hurry nonetheless.'

He grasped her arm and led her down the length of the bay towards the glass-fronted offices.

'What is this place?' she said, looking up and around.

'A pod bay. I'm going to put you on a pod and send you back to Nimbus 1.'

She gasped, and then weirdly, tears come to her eyes. 'Thank you! Oh gods, thank you! But…my sister…'

'Your sister?' he said, uncomprehendingly.

'We should have taken my sister at the same time! Can we go back?'

'No! I can only rescue one person.'

'But-'

'No. Now, do you want to be rescued, or not?'

She nodded, tears falling down her cheeks.

'Not you too,' he said, and looked away from her with a shake of his head. At the end of the aisle he led her up the metal steps to the top office – the pod bay control room. Inside they could look down the length of the bay and see every pod. Vegeta sat in one of the chairs and looked up and down the console for a suitable pod while the girl hovered nervously at his shoulder. He certainly wasn't going to use his own usual pod. He was tempted to put her in Zarbon's, but that might only bring more suspicion on himself. In the end he picked a pod that he had no clue whose it was, but the data on it showed it was in full operational order, which was what really mattered.

He pressed the button to prep the pod and queried the space traffic control computer for the nearest launch window. To avoid collisions with shuttles and ships parked in orbit during their rather rapid launch, the pods were timed to go only when the air space above were free. The next free window was five minutes long and eleven minutes away. Vegeta took a deep breath.

'Eleven minutes until we can launch,' he said.

'Will they discover us in the meantime?' she asked.

'There is no reason yet for security to know anything is wrong. When the pod launches that will probably be their first clue. Unless we're unlucky and someone wanders in.'

She smiled and laughed shakily. 'Oh gods, it's going to be a nerve wracking eleven minutes.'

Vegeta glanced back at the console to check that the refuel and oxygen gauges were rising steadily. The girl pulled up a chair next to his and looked back and forth between the console and Vegeta's face. She pointed at the fuel level diagram, leaning across him to do so.

'Do we have to wait for that?'

'Yes. And a launch window.'

'Okay.'

He looked down the pod bay but began to grow uncomfortable under her gaze. She was staring at him, but he had no idea why. He turned and stared back at her. The tears were drying on her cheeks. Her brow and lips trembled like she didn't know whether to smile or frown.

'I've been telling myself I'm stupid for dreaming I would be rescued,' she said. 'Part of me still doesn't really believe it's happening. This isn't a trick, is it?'

'No trick, no.'

'I can't believe it,' she said. 'One person can't be this lucky! But my sister! I've got to get my sister out too! Maybe I can put together a rescue team once I'm on the Homeworld? Or maybe the military are already planning a mass rescue? They must be, right?'

'Maybe,' Vegeta said, knowing that there was no possible way either would happen. He decided to let her think it might, just in case she became difficult again. He didn't fancy wrestling her into a pod against her will. He was much preferring how amiable she was being at this moment.

'The government won't stand for their people being slaves,' she assured herself. 'If they invade this place, will you help them? Make sure my sister gets out alright?'

'Yes,' he said, knowing it would never happen.

She left a slow breath out. 'Then I am so very grateful' she said laying a hand on his shoulder. It was an unfamiliar gesture to him – so light a touch. 'I'll never be able to thank you in a million years. But why would you do this? You're not even Nimbrian.'

She was looking him in the eyes, her pupils wide in the dimness of the control office, ringed by deep purple irises and reflecting the strip lights from the pod bay outside. For a moment he didn't register the question, but then he ran it back through his mind and replied. 'I already told you; it doesn't matter.'

'Well then, why are you rescuing _me?_' she insisted.

Now he was really lost. The other girl had asked him the same question, and it was disconcerting to hear it asked again by this other one. He still didn't know the answer. He shrugged uncomfortably under her hand and noticed just how close she was as she leant in to hear the answer. He could feel her breath on his skin and see the tiny flecks of pink in her irises.

'Is it because of who I am?' she asked when he didn't answer.

'No,' he said, confused. 'Who are you?'

'I'm Acai. I'm famous. I'm a singer.'

Vegeta shook his head. Famous singers? It had never occurred to him that people could become famous for such a frivolous thing. 'I've never heard of you.'

She gasped and then laughed. 'That's okay. I didn't think I had many fans outside the Nimbus system anyway. So you picked me at random?'

'I just saw you in the slave house. I decided it should be you.'

A smile curled her lips. Vegeta was transfixed by the warmth of it. No one smiled at him like that, nor looked so pretty doing it. 'I saw you seeing,' she said. 'I thought you were too cute to be a slave guard.'

'Cute?' he repeated, not sure what to think of it. It wasn't a word he'd come across much before, and he'd certainly never heard it applied to himself. 'What do you mean?'

Her smile stayed, but she frowned slightly at the same time. 'What do you mean, "what do you mean"? I mean…I think you're kind of good looking.'

This was a revelation to Vegeta. He was quite a fan of his own face, although he would have described it as fierce and cunning, but most everyone else he knew described him as ugly, if they described him at all beyond "Monkey Boy". The fact that someone else thought he was good looking was unexpectedly gratifying. Her smile and her slight blush, he realised, were for him. Heat began to spread across his skin.

'What else am I?' he asked.

'I don't know yet. But I know you're strong, and brave…and…and a hero.'

Any mocking retort he might've made was knocked from Vegeta's mind as she leant forward and kissed him lightly on his lips; he was frozen in place by surprise and ferocious yearning. He breathed deep, affirming to himself that his heart was still beating, and then it started pounding away. The kiss was over far too soon as she sat straight again. He looked across the empty space between them and considered crossing it himself. Instead he stood up, covering his confusion by checking the gauges again and leaning towards the window and looking out to figure out which cradle the pod he'd selected sat in.

She stood too and leant against the console next to him, close enough that their arms brushed, following his gaze out the window. 'How much longer?' she asked.

'Eight minutes.' Vegeta looked over at her and met her gaze again. His fist curled nervously as he considered grabbing her and kissing her back. What would she do? Would she scream? Would she…not?

She glanced away from him and then back again. She sounded a little breathless as she said, 'Actually, I think you're more than just "kind of" good looking.'

He did it – he kissed her back, clumsily, bumping his lips against hers. To his surprise she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on, turning the contact into a lingering moment of closeness. He had his hands on her hips before he'd even consciously asked them to do so. She held his eyes for another moment before she kissed him again, slower and firmer this time.

It was too much for Vegeta – he was overwhelmed by her, the feel of her pressed against him, and the powerful need he had thundering through his veins. He'd never felt anything like it and it frightened him.

'We should remain alert,' he panted.

'Okay,' she said, but then she kissed him a third time and he couldn't resist, his mouth opening to her, and he forgot where he was and the passing of time as he let his hands run over her, down and over the roundness of buttocks, up her back to her hair, down her front to her breasts. She didn't object; in fact, she seemed to like it, pulling herself harder against him. He liked to too, and he wanted more, much more. Her fingers stroked his neck and tangled in the hair that stuck out from under the lumpy helmet, and then she reached up and lifted the ugly thing and the scouter from his head. She paused after she did so, going rigid in his arms and dropping the helmet to the floor, but he gave no thought as to why as he kissed her again, lost in the feel of her mouth, tugging at the ties of her apron as his fingers obeyed the need that was now throbbing between his legs. He pulled the apron off her and lifted the hem of her tunic even as part of his brain was registering that she was now not quite so eager about this as she had been. She tried to hold the tunic down, but he caught a new, and dizzying scent from her and he held her tight, ignoring her resistance as he insistently tugged the tunic out of her grasp and over her head. She stepped back and he let her go this time, taking in the sight of her.

'Damn! Damn! Dammit!' she was saying, looking confused as she stood before him in her underwear, hands going to her face as she frowned. Then she looked into his eyes again. 'How can this be happening?'

'You're beautiful,' he said, the words tumbling out of his mouth as he stepped forward and reached out towards her again.

'Uh-huh.' She caught his wrists and attempted to hold him away from her. He let her, for the moment, still close enough to brush his cheek down hers and rest his nose against her throat where her pulse pounded.

'And you smell like…nice.'

'I don't understand!' she said. 'You said this wasn't a trick – do you swear this isn't a trick?'

'I swear!' he said, moving suddenly to free his wrists from her grasp and lay his hands on her again. He kissed her neck and tasted the skin there and she whimpered.

'Shit!' she whispered. 'What the hell am I doing?'

But as he held her tight and rubbed his face against her breasts she relaxed against him again, her body surrendering. His tail wrapped around her, stroking her own silky, short one before tightening around her thigh. He pulled her against him and she sighed as he pressed his himself between her legs. That was enough for Vegeta, or rather, too much. He bore her to the ground, his hands shaking with urgency as he pushed down the waistband of his pants, freeing himself and then pulled down her underwear. There were small doubts pecking distantly at his mind, but he didn't listen – all he wanted was to join his body with this slice of heaven sent to him at his lowest hour.

'Wait!' she said, but he didn't, and she made a noise like 'Ah!' as he pushed his way inside her, and there was all the warmth, the safety, the pleasure he'd been looking for. He buried his nose in her neck as he lost himself completely, and soon he was coming with an intensity he wasn't used to, making him grunt and cry out. Would he wake up now? He didn't think it was a dream, but this surely couldn't be reality. He could feel the hardness of the concrete under his knees and a cold breeze on his backside.

He crouched over her, catching his breath and his senses. As they returned, embarrassment at his loss of control came with them. What was he doing fucking this girl on the floor when at any moment they could be discovered?

From the console above a short string of electronic beeps let him know that launch window was about to open.

'The pod is almost ready to go,' he said. 'We should hurry.' He raised himself on his arms and took a second to look at her. She looked back at him, biting her lower lip, tears in the corners of her eyes. Suddenly the doubts he had pushed aside came rushing to the fore, and he understood what he'd done.

'I forced you,' he said, matter-of-factly.

She shook her head and looked away. 'No, it's okay,' she said in a voice much weaker than the one she had used before.

He got off her, embarrassment turning to shame. She didn't sound very convincing. He hadn't intended to force himself on her. He didn't want to force himself on anyone – he had thought she wanted him!

'I don't believe you,' he said, pulling his pants back up, grabbing the scouter, and bundling her clothes together.

'No, I wanted it, too,' she insisted. 'It's all right.'

He thrust the clothes at her, still not sure he believed her, but there was really no time to argue about it. He hoisted her up over his shoulder, making her squeak with fright, and carried her, still naked, out of the control room and down the ranks of tubes to the waiting pod. He inserted her feet first through the open hatch and leaned in after her, his hand making for the armrest.

'Will we both fit in the same pod?' she asked.

Vegeta stopped in surprise. 'We won't need to. I'm not coming with you.'

'What? But…I thought you were...Don't you want to get away from all this?'

'I can't.'

'Why not? You're as much a slave as I am.'

Vegeta's mouth popped open in astonishment. 'You don't know anything about me!' he told her angrily. 'I'm not a lowly slave! You have no idea who you're talking to!'

'I _do_ know who I'm talking to,' she said meekly. 'You're Prince Vegeta. I finally recognised you from the broadcast when I took your helmet off.'

For a moment Vegeta was still as everything in his mind danced around and rearranged itself. No wonder she had lost her nerve when she'd pulled the helmet off. This changed everything.

'We heard a rumour in the slave quarters that you were nearly killed for protecting a Nimbrian woman. I didn't believe it, but I can believe it now, though I don't understand why you would,' she said softly, and then horror dawned across her face as she if this were only properly occurring to her as she spoke. 'I mean, after everything you did to my people…You must've been forced to do that, just like I was forced to work in the factories…under threat of death. You can't really be completely evil. Can you? Not if you'd do something like rescue me! That must true, right?'

He didn't answer her; fear and fury were chasing each other around inside his head. She wasn't supposed to know who he was! And she had equated him with a slave, even after she did! He, a slave! And yet it was all the more enraging because now that she said it he could see that it was true!

Another string of beeps from the screen by his elbow let him know that the launch window was open.

'You weren't supposed to know who I am,' he said. If she was caught now, she could lead Frieza straight to him with a single word. Could he abandon his plan now, at this late moment? Could he kill her and send the pod away to bear her corpse back to Nimbus 1? What a mockery that would make of his defiance!

'It's okay. I won't tell,' she said. 'If you came with me I can go back to being a singer, and you could start a new life.'

For a second he imagined it. He considered letting her pull him in like he had in his dream, his troubles dropping away, his life and mission dropping away, but a thousand reasons argued against it. How was he to carry out his revenge on Frieza if he deserted? For that matter, how could he expect to get away with deserting? He couldn't stop on Nimbus 1. He'd have to keep going into the outer edges of the galaxy, to the back of nowhere and live anonymously. Then what would he do for a living? Take over a planet? That was hardly anonymous! How would he gain the strength he needed there? How could he fulfil his destiny? What if he let his father down by taking such a risk? No! He had to stay close to Frieza.

'No. They won't look long for a stolen pod, but Frieza will not stop looking for me if I'm on board it,' he said, leaving out the rest. 'I can't go with you.'

'Oh…I'm sorry!' she said, and leaned down to squeeze his shoulder.

He pushed her back into the pod and leaned in again. 'Pod 101, pre-program destination Nimbus 1, urgent speed.'

'Program accepted.'

'Pod 101, pre-program hypersleep cycle at lift off, plus five minutes.'

'Program accepted.'

Next he tore at the armrest, wrenching it away and exposing the circuits of the tracking device. He crushed it to powder and shoved the armrest back in place. He poked the camera too, disabling it. He couldn't kill her. He couldn't nullify his plan at this point after coming so far, or he'd have risked himself for nothing. He couldn't accept another failure. He would have to trust luck…and perhaps her.

He opened a panel in the padded interior wall. Inside was a first aid kit, and he opened it, coming up with a scalpel and a tiny vial of tablets.

'If they capture you, do us both a favour. Take all the pills and open an artery. If they capture you they will kill you, no two ways about it, but not before they torture you to find out who helped you escape.'

She nodded, more tears coming to her eyes, and she shook with fear. 'Thank you,' she repeated.

'If you can, destroy the pod after you land.'

'How?'

'You'll have to figure that out for yourself. But whatever you do, _don't tell anyone_ who helped you escape! Understand? No one, not ever!' This last he snarled with such ferocity that she flinched.

'I won't.'

Satisfied with her frightened expression he spoke to the computer next. 'Pod 101, delay lift off, one minute.'

'Delay lift off initiated.'

He took the scouter and quickly opened it, ripping out and crushing its innards, and leaving the mess on the floor of the pod. Then he stepped away from the hatch to close it, but she darted forward again.

'Vegeta!'

He was startled by the sudden use of his name. 'What?'

'If you're staying, save my sister!'

'No! I don't even know yet if I'll get away with one rescue, never mind two!'

'If you can!' she said. 'Even if you have to wait a long time before you try. Save my sister, please! She lives in the same slave house as me. She looks just like me, but she's younger and has less green in her hair. Her name is Goji.'

'I can promise nothing.'

'Of course you can't. But if you get the chance…If a rescue team comes…' She leaned out and hesitated before steeling herself to kiss him on the lips again.

'Get inside!' he shouted. 'We're wasting time, and I don't want to have to reset the launch!'

She sat back and he closed the hatch on her. Through the red glass window he could see her trying to smile even though her bare shoulders were shaking with sobs he couldn't hear. He suddenly felt terribly lonely and exposed on this side of the glass.

The klaxon sounded once, and the light over the pod chute flashed. Vegeta took a couple more steps back and the pod and cradle rocketed up the chute, and she was gone.

* * *

_Author's Note: Thoughts? Feels? Review!_


	4. Chapter 4 - Goji

_Author's Note: Not that many reviews so far on Chapter 3...I'm going to assume you were all stunned into silence. Well now you get to find out if Vegeta manages to get away with this "rescue" or not._

_Before we get going, and because I don't want to leave this note at the end, who here has eaten a noni fruit? Who's smelt one? Seriously, why would nature have invented such a thing? It's a health food, purportedly. I dare you to try eating one._

* * *

Now that she was gone, all Vegeta felt was the danger of his situation. He returned to the control room and picked up his fallen helmet, and seeing a wet patch of the concrete floor he scorched it with chi to burn up any DNA. He used his nose to hunt down another drip on the walkway and burned that too. He left through the doors and walked as quickly as he could without actually running back to the subway entrance, and just as he started down the steps he heard the sound of running feet across the plaza heading to the pod bay. Sweating with anxiety he was glad to find the station still deserted, and he took off down the tunnel. He stopped between stations to take the slave guard uniform off and burn it to ash and molten plastic. Changing lines, he returned to the grill he first entered the system by and ascended to the alleyway.

When he pushed his way back through the bathroom window he was panting as if he'd been running at top speed for hours. He checked his scouter and saw that there were five minutes of his hour remaining and he hurriedly dunked himself in the cooling bath water and scrubbed for all he was worth. Only then did he begin to relax enough that he might begin the second phase of his plan – waiting and lying.

'Pure Saiyan genius,' he congratulated himself and laughed.

He purposely stayed in the bath past the end of the hour, grinning at his own success, until the next bather was banging on the door in ire.

'Vegeta, you little cocksucker!' yelled the voice of Captain Noni. 'Did nobody teach you how to share? Get out of there!'

Growling loud enough for the Captain to hear, he hauled himself from the bath and pulled the plug. He dried himself and wrapped the drying cloth around his waist, carrying his clothes back to his room. The lumpy-skinned, green-faced captain scowled at him as he passed.

'Phew,' Vegeta exclaimed. 'You certainly smell you like _need_ a bath, Captain.'

'Don't think you won't pay for that!' said the Captain, and slammed the bathroom door.

Vegeta dumped his clothes on the floor of his cell and lay back on his bed. His initial relief was beginning to wear off. By now it must be known that a pod had been stolen. He wondered how long before the news filtered up to Zarbon. He had sent the pod at top speed, so she should have been very quickly out of range of the radars and satellites. _Should_ have. It only occurred to him then that it was also possible, if someone had thought to launch a faster ship very soon after the pod was discovered missing, that it could have tracked the pod with radar and caught up to it. His heart raced with panic at the thought.

_I must be calm_, he told himself. _I must betray no emotion that would give me away._

His heart had finally begun to slow and he was considering getting into bed when his door was slammed open. He jumped upright in surprise and Zarbon suddenly loomed through the doorway. His eyes raked across the room and then locked on Vegeta, and when they did he looked almost as surprised as Vegeta.

'Sir?'

Zarbon just bared his teeth at him and swept back out of the room without a word.

Unnerved, Vegeta chucked his towel on the floor and got in bed. He wasn't normally so slovenly, but this was evidence to back up his alibi.

For hours he didn't sleep, imagining what was happening outside his room; in the ready room, in the security HQ, in pod bay B, in space. It occurred to him that he didn't really know the likelihood of her pod being captured or not. He'd only guessed, and for all he knew he'd been terribly wrong. She would be in hypersleep. If they caught up to her, would she even have time to wake up and kill herself? Would she even try? Even now she could be in an interrogation room confessing everything. Urgh, he felt sick with the worry of it.

He had a sudden vision of her woken rudely from hypersleep, disorientated, groggy, and then realising that her doom was on her and taking hold of the scalpel…Vegeta's heart raced with distress as if it was himself facing that decision. What the hell was wrong with him? Why was he imagining how she _might_ feel _if_ such a thing happened? It was bad enough being himself right here and now. But he found himself whispering aloud 'Don't let it come to that!' He couldn't have said whom he was pleading to though.

He tried to figure out the reason for Zarbon's entrance and just as abrupt exit. Obviously he had suspected Vegeta immediately. But he also hadn't expected to see him here. He concluded that Zarbon's first assumption was that Vegeta had stolen the pod and fled the planet himself. In a way, this was reassuring. If he had defied Zarbon's first expectation then perhaps it would lessen the any further suspicion that he was involved.

Eventually his brain slowed down enough to allow memories of the dramatic evening to filter through the worry. Memories like when she'd sagged in his arms at just the word 'rescue.' Like when she kissed him, a touch of pink touching her gold tinted cheeks. Like the way her skin and her mouth tasted. Like the feel of her naked breasts in his hands. Like when she'd said 'Wait!' but he hadn't. Like when she'd said it was okay, but she hadn't really sounded okay. Until that point he had been lost in a haze of gratification like he'd never known before, but now the whole memory was soured because of the way it ended. He had snatched something she'd been about to offer him. He wanted to go back and undo the end of that memory. He hadn't planned on his rescue victim…_throwing_ herself at him – he hadn't stuck to his original plan, he'd just given in to excitement and done _whatever_. He should have stopped himself before it got that far, but he hadn't, and in the thrill of the moment he'd wrecked it because…he had not taken her into consideration.

A new feeling filled him. It was like shame, but it was heavier, like a stone filling his chest. It was worse than shame.

He spent the rest of the night until dawn replaying the scene in the pod bay control room over and over, rewriting the ending in his head.

ooo

After a couple of hours sleep he made his way to breakfast for his trayful of uninspired slop, but he found himself enjoying it even less than usual. He picked away at it, staring at the comings or goings of the mess hall, and stiffening with anticipation every time he saw someone walking or looking in his direction. At last he finished and was making his slow way to the training centre when the hammer began to fall.

'Vegeta, this is General Dodoria,' came a voice in his scouter's earpiece. 'Could you come to my office at your earliest convenience?'

'Right away, Sir!'

He fought a partially successful battle to keep his heart beating slow and even as he walked in measured, deliberated steps towards the palace. Partway there, feeling as if everyone he passed was looking at him with rather too much interest, the feeling that his gait was unnatural overwhelmed him and he lost the ability to walk unconsciously. He felt like a puppet master controlling his own body and he nearly panicked on the spot.

_Stop it!_ he told himself_. I need to be in absolute control right now! I don't even know why I've been called in there, but I can't be a flustered, guilty mess when I step through the door!_

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply and slowly for a minute outside Dodoria's office before raising his fist to knock.

'Come in!'

He did, and a pair of security guards stepped around him and left.

Dodoria stared at him from around the other side of his low desk. The chair he lounged in was more of a divan that a chair, and it held his corpulent form with small squeaks of protest from its squat legs. Dodoria's expression was calculating and smug. Vegeta found it easier to relax looking at his ugly, pink face and chopped liver lips – his own face settled into the expression of veiled contempt he was accustomed to using before Dodoria.

At last Dodoria cocked his head and spoke. 'Vegeta, can you tell me what you were up to yesterday evening?'

'I can, Sir.'

'Then do so.'

'I was in the training rooms until dinner…then I had dinner in the mess hall…then…I went to my room for a little while, and then had a bath in the shared officers' bathroom on my floor. Then I went to bed.'

'Can anyone back up your claims?'

Vegeta felt a tingle of alarm at the assumption of guilt in Dodoria's question, but he concealed it beneath an angry scowl. 'Yes, I'm sure some could. What is this about, may I ask, Sir?'

'I'm investigating a robbery that my security team discovered last night. Two ground crew were killed and a pod was stolen. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?'

'No, sir. I don't know why you would suspect me, sir. It's not like I can conceal a pod in my quarters.'

Dodoria snorted in reluctant amusement. 'Just give me the names of those who might be able to back up your alibi, you mouthy little punk.'

Ten minutes later Vegeta was out of the office and making his way back to the training rooms. He flicked around the room, barely seeing the obstacles and targets, just going through the motions until a moving target hit him in the back of the head, knocking out of his endless circle of worried thoughts. He decided it was close enough to lunch to justify wandering back to the mess hall. He showered in the communal shower and then headed back to the mess hall only to find it between services, closed while slaves wiped and moped every flat surface. He started back towards his cell when Captain Noni rounded the corner and the man's over-large face screwed up into a frown.

'What've you got up to, Vegeta?' he said.

'Nothing.'

'That's not what Dodoria seems to think.'

'Really? Then Dodoria is wrong.'

Noni stopped in front of him and gave him a shrewd took. 'I was just called into that puss-hole's office to be questioned about your bathing habits.'

'What did you tell him?'

'That you're an arrogant, inconsiderate shit that doesn't get out of the bath when you're supposed to. Do you know what? I said you'd pay for that, and now I fancy a bit of a spar. Get out in the arena, Vegeta. I'm going to have you black and blue.'

Vegeta grinned. Captain Noni was stronger than him – last week. After Frieza's punishment and Jeice's trouncing, who knew who was the stronger?

'Is that an order, Captain?'

'Too bloody right, it is.'

ooo

Vegeta went to bed early that night. He knew that rumours were circulating about the stolen pod and Dodoria's investigation, but he wasn't getting so much attention that he was concerned. The fight with Noni had been an hour of hard-won fun, and he'd left the arena bruised but with his head held high, whereas Noni left it on a stretcher being rushed to a med bay. He had celebrated with an extra large, early dinner and another bath. Unable to keep his eyes open afterward he'd turned in, his worries not enough at that moment to keep him awake.

He awoke to the sinking of the mattress as someone sat on the edge of his bed. Instinctively he kicked out at the intruder at the same time as he scrambled away from them, but his feet were deflected and a rattling, back-handed slap knocked him against the wall, putting a dent in it. Groaning he saw, outlined by the light spilling in from the corridor, Zarbon looking at him with distaste. His pounding heart nearly exploded from his chest.

'If I find that you had something to do with this stolen pod, I won't give Frieza a chance to forgive you,' the minty-skinned man said. 'I will _kill_ you, and it will be your just dessert.'

Vegeta was too scared for a moment to realise he should be denying his involvement.

'I didn't! It wasn't-'

'Save it,' said Zarbon. He stood up as if to go, but then turned again, taking something from under his armour. Whatever it was, it was small, like a short pen, and in a plastic baggy. As Zarbon pulled it out if the bag the stench of sweet, putrid flesh hit Vegeta's sensitive nose. 'I brought you a keepsake,' he said, and threw it at Vegeta's face. Vegeta automatically caught it, but dared not take his eyes off Zarbon. Zarbon snorted with amusement as he turned to go.

'The construction crew found it while they were cleaning up the mess you made of Frieza's throne room. I think it might be the only piece left.'

Zarbon sauntered out of the room and closed the door behind him, leaving Vegeta in the dark. He was suddenly filled with dread by the soft, stiff thing he clutched in his hand. He turned on the desk light and recoiled with horror, tumbling the decaying pink-skinned finger to the ground. It was _her_.

He found himself pressed up against the wall, sliding down it as his knees weakened, just staring at the thing on the floor in the centre of the room. Searching around with his hand he laid hold of the drying cloth he'd abandoned last night and threw it so that it covered the pathetic bit of skin and bone and rotting flesh. Feeling he could breath again, a shiver ripped up Vegeta's spine and escaped from his mouth with a whimper. He had seen how many severed fingers before? He'd personally ripped dozens of them off people while they were still alive. He'd seen corpses in their thousands, corpses that he'd made out of living beings, heads decapitated, necks and arm sockets and body cavities gushing blood, oozing slime, rotting in scenes from Hell, and he'd never felt this.

It was _her_. She hadn't disappeared. He really had killed her. He'd killed billions upon billions and never regretted a single murder. The spirits of most that he had killed were like scraps of gossamer silk barely clinging to their bodies, and he'd felt contempt that he could part the two so easily. Until this one. She hadn't been easy to kill at all.

And he never wanted to be reminded that it had happened again.

Still shivering and shaking, he bundled up the cloth, trying not to touch the finger at all, though he couldn't help smell it, and slipped out into the corridor. He felt suddenly and irrationally angry with her that she could be reduced to a stinking, horrible piece of gristle.

It was the dead of the night and most people were asleep. He made his way down and outside, heading towards the mess hall. He hadn't been sure whether to just burn the thing himself as soon as he was outside, but when he lifted his hand and felt the chi come to him with difficulty it reminded him too much of when he had actually killed her. He continued round the back of the mess hall and went down the steps to the basement where a furnace burned night and day, incinerating rubbish and heating the ovens in the kitchens.

He opened the furnace door, red-hot heat spilling out and scorching him like the promise of the Underworld, and threw the finger in onto the shimmering coals, makeshift shroud and all. It immediately hissed as it caught alight, and her name came back to him unbidden.

_Chia._

He shoved it down, refusing to remember, and slammed the furnace door. He was sweating as he made his way back to his room, promising himself a long list of things he would never do again. Never go back to the Nimbus system. Never go back to the quarter of the city where the Nimbrian slaves are. Never steal a woman again. Never save one! Never find himself in a position where killing someone could make him feel like this!

In the still, quiet dark of the night a fatalistic mood was stealing over him. He was sure the other one was dead. Captured and either killed or had killed herself, and that was his fault too. And now the trail of evidence would lead Dodoria's security team back to him, and he would be the next one to die. He wished he'd never come up with the risky scheme. What had been the point of it anyway? Secret defiance was nothing compared to eternal death!

He lay awake for most of the rest of the night, trying to drown out the thoughts with an endless dull recollection of Saiyan history, then Galactic history, then every planet he'd ever visited, his favourite meals, his favourite fights, his best one-line comebacks…

He came awake after a fleeting dream that he walked naked through the mess hall, the arena, the officer quarters and the palace, and everyone he passed stared at him and laughed and pinched him and slapped him, and he knew he was heading towards Frieza who would demand to know how he lost his clothes and kill him.

That morning he could not face people. He bolted his breakfast in the corner of the mess hall, pocketed a couple of rolls and walked out into the city. Even those anonymous faces were too much for him today, as every glance seemed loaded with speculation and accusation. When he reached the tall fence at outer limits of the city he chose a moment when the guards in the nearest tower were looking the other way and leapt the barrier with eye-defying speed. Now he flew over the strange wilderness of Planet Frieza 79 seeking the relief of true solitude.

He'd done this many times before and never gotten in trouble for it. No one had ever said he was not allowed, although the fence and the guards were a fairly large hint. It was unnecessary though. Where could he possibly go on this planet's surface that Frieza's men could not track him down and return him to the fold?

Other than the main city, the planet was mostly unoccupied. There were some large scale mines and some areas of agriculture, though these were mostly for the aesthetics of it; most of the food resources for the city come from planets that produced food on a super-industrial scale. There were also some other houses of Frieza's dotted about for when he wanted a change of scenery.

He followed a river that reflected the sun and the stars back at him, until it dropped into a ravine. Vegeta dropped too and found a place that seemed to suit his mood well. The river became a waterfall, thundering softly and endlessly into a deep waterhole, throwing up a curtain of mist that filled the bowl of the ravine. Glossy-leaved plants of green and purple grew thickly on the walls and crags of rocks. The whole was sheltered from the sky above by the walls of the ravine, and Vegeta chose a spot on a sun-kissed rock overhanging the pool, letting himself believe in the promise of safety and concealment it offered.

He hated this uncertainty. He hated being scared. He wished he had gotten on that pod with the girl after all. Sure, he'd be hunted, but at least he would know that he was hunted, and he'd know when he was caught.

Lying down on the rock, he stared at the pattern of falling water. It was astounding that rivers and waterfalls existed here at all. With its lacking atmosphere, this planet didn't even have rain. It had a lot of ground water, which was why the city was built on a prominence, and it was this ground water that erupted from springs and fissures that fed the streams and rivers and lakes before passing beneath the ground again. Its movement was powered by the shifting, unseen pressures of tectonic plates, vying for position on a grand scale. Where the pressure was too great the water was forced to the surface, and where it found a gap made by retreating forces it slunk out of sight again.

He fell asleep in the sun and slept solidly for the first time in days, a dreamless sleep so complete that when he awoke he forgot his reasons for coming here for a moment. The sun was out of sight now and he ate the rolls he'd nicked and thought about heading back for more dinner, for surely it was that time by now? Leaping into the air his sense of peace was burst immediately. Frieza, of all people, was flying by in his hovering chair, flanked by guards and trailed by Dodoria. Vegeta cursed his stupidity for not checking his scouter before emerging, but before he could drop back, the whole cavalcade slowed and rounded on him.

'Vegeta? Is that you?' called Frieza as soon as he was close enough. 'What are you doing out here?'

'Admiring the scenery,' he replied, coolly, although his heart was skittering around with fright.

'Really? I didn't take you for an aesthete, Vegeta,' Frieza said as he stopped short of the Saiyan. 'What'll you be doing next? Reciting poetry?'

Dodoria and the bodyguards laughed on cue, but Frieza didn't even crack a smile, and his eyes glinted with displeasure.

'What's he really been doing out here, Dodoria?' he asked.

'On moment, my Lord,' replied Dodoria and raised his hand to his scouter to hail someone. 'Personnel records? This is Dodoria. Run Vegeta's scouter locations for the last twelve hours…Immediately.'

'Have you been spying on my lakehouse, Vegeta?' asked Frieza, speaking over Dodoria's commands.

'No, my Lord!'

'You two,' said Dodoria, gesturing at the closest guards. 'Get down to that dell thing and make sure the monkey boy's not hiding something down there.'

The grey-skinned and yellow-skinned men rushed to follow the order, and Dodoria tuned back in to the voice on the other end of this scouter link. Vegeta was frozen by Frieza's gaze and feeling all the more angry at this suspicion because this time he really _hadn't_ been up to anything.

'Lord Frieza, he hasn't been anywhere near the lakehouse,' said Dodoria. 'He's been in the city and made pretty much a beeline to this spot, although he's been here for eight hours. Or at least his scouter has. But the lakehouse security has recorded no power signatures in the vicinity.'

'What were you doing down there for eight hours?' asked Frieza. He cocked his head, still suspicious, but his voice was laced with interest too.

'Sleeping,' Vegeta replied truthfully.

'You don't get enough sleep in your room, Vegeta?'

Vegeta was unsure of how to answer. 'Not lately,' he said at last.

Unexpectedly Frieza's attitude thawed and he smiled a little. 'Let me guess – Zarbon has been giving you a hard time?'

'Yes, my Lord.'

'He's had an even bigger bee in his bonnet about you lately than I have. So touchy.'

Dodoria chuckled to hear the criticism of his main rival for Frieza's ear. The two soldiers returned from the ravine and announced that they found nothing.

'Have you been to my lakehouse before, Vegeta?' asked Frieza.

'No, my Lord.'

'Come with me now. A nature lover such as yourself should appreciate it.'

ooo

The house was small compared to the palace, and was a whimsical sculpture of a building - all smooth curves and sharp lines. It was a few storeys tall, and from the roof terrace where Frieza sat and Vegeta waited upon him, the view was expansive. The setting sun backlit the plants that grew around the black waters of the lake, making them glow, and it sparkled on the water like fierce diamonds.

'It is…very beautiful,' said Vegeta, stumbling over the unfamiliar task of praising scenery. 'All the greens and pinks. Like, um, emergency chemical lights.'

Frieza laughed at his discomfort. 'I think poetry may be far out of your league. Pour us a glass, Vegeta. One for yourself and Dodoria too, when he gets here.'

Vegeta thankfully turned away from the sunset and made his way behind Frieza's sun lounger to a cabinet where a decanter and glasses waited. Pouring the first, the glass chimed merrily as Vegeta's shaking hand held the decanter too close. Frieza's eye immediately cocked over on his direction, and Vegeta moved the neck of the decanter further away from the next two glasses. Handing Frieza one glass he stood nervously to the side, and then was gripped by a strange urge to bow. He did so before he could stop himself and Frieza laughed.

'Oh, how rich this is! Having a savage monkey playing foot servant to me. I should do this more often.'

Vegeta flushed in humiliation and flicked a silent snarl towards the real foot servant, who had retreated to the back of the terrace and was glaring at Vegeta in open malice.

'Would you like that, Vegeta? To stay at my side to wait on me hand and foot?' Frieza asked playfully, his dark red eyes curved into half moons of delight at the idea.

Vegeta stood open-mouthed at the proposal. There was nothing he would like less, and he had no idea what he should say. But after a moment of stricken silence, Frieza answered for him.

'Of course you wouldn't! You're my profit-making monkey. My perfect little killing machine. Well, almost perfect,' he concluded, turning away from Vegeta on this note of disappointment.

'Thank you, my Lord.' He picked up his own glass and decided that he would drink it this time. It couldn't be poisoned as he had chosen the glass and poured it himself, and his nerves felt stretched tight from finding himself at the mercy of another of Frieza's unpredictable turns. He spluttered on the first sip but persisted, taking a few gulps behind Frieza's back. Dodoria stamped up the steps onto the roof, squeezing his paunch through the opening.

'You really are getting _fat_ Dodoria,' chided Frieza. 'You'd better watch it! I've got no use for a General who can't fit through the doorways.'

Vegeta choked on his liqueur a little, but Dodoria just muttered 'Of course, my Lord,' as casually as if the little pink, white and purple monster hadn't just threatened his life. Vegeta didn't know how Dodoria was able to manage working so closely with Frieza. 'It's all this dull work around base. I need to get out from this desk-job and back on a battlefield again.'

'Oh, so sorry Dodoria that the extended tranquillity of my empire is boring for you,' said Frieza, with sarcasm. 'Be careful what you wish for anyway. Nothing lasts for ever, especially peace.'

'I can only hope so, my Lord. In the meantime, please excuse me, one of my team is calling…' Dodoria then raised his hand to his scouter, taking another call from someone back in the city, but he spotted the glass on the cabinet and pushed his way past Vegeta to pick it up.

'So the last roll call was when?…No, you're right…And the slave count?…Well let me know as soon as _you_ know.'

As he hung up Frieza sighed 'How is the investigation going then, Dodoria?'

'Hmm,' rumbled Dodoria, sipping his drink. 'I'm severely lacking in a culprit and it's beginning to piss me off. We already knew that none of the military stationed on planet have gone AWOL, and that was my team letting me know that they've finally completed a roll call of the non-military personnel, and none of them are missing either. So either it was an empty pod or a slave.'

'A slave? That seems very unlikely. From what you've said about the pod bay doors and the dead ground crew I doubt any slaves would be strong enough to pull the feat off.'

'Maybe some of the slaves have hidden powers we're not aware of. If they do, that represents a serious security flaw.'

'Indeed. Hence the slave count, I suppose.'

'Not that it will do us much good even if they manage to do a decent slave count,' Dodoria complained.

'Oh? And why is that?'

'My Lord, are you aware of the attrition rates on the slaves? If we _haven't_ lost a handful of them in the last two days I'll be surprised.'

Frieza frowned in anger and Dodoria rushed to placate him.

'Still, even identifying a handful of missing slaves gives us some leads to investigate.'

'Of course. Tell me, where do all these missing slaves go?'

'Oh, they turn up usually. Hiding in the subways or the alleyways. Or we find their bodies in the sewers, or stuffed in cupboards, under floorboards, that kind of thing. In the past my team have found at least a dozen shallow graves outside the city limits when searching for other contraband. I speculate there are probably hundreds more. It seems like a good way to dispose of the evidence.'

'Evidence of what?' snapped Frieza, and then he rolled his eyes. 'Wait, don't tell me. Urgh. And with my property! That is disrespectful!'

Listening to Dodoria and Frieza's conversation Vegeta felt himself relax, both from the burning warmth of the drink and the realisation that Frieza and Dodoria at least no longer held any suspicion towards him for the pod theft. Vegeta looked into the ruby depths of his glass and speculated on the calming effects of this drink. He wondered if that was why Frieza drank it, and exactly how volatile he would be if he didn't.

Frieza drained the last of his glass and held it out in his small, pale mauve hand. Both Vegeta and the foot servant stepped forward to take it, but Vegeta was closer. He should have left the servant do it, but once he had the glass in hand he was stuck with the duty again. Turning back to the cabinet he filled the glass, and then took the opportunity to top his own mostly-empty glass up.

'Tsch!' said the servant.

'Fuck off,' whispered Vegeta.

He handed Frieza his drink.

'What, no bow this time?' Frieza purred. 'And you were so mannered before.'

Vegeta bowed obediently, finding that he didn't care quite so much any more.

'Well, look at that,' said Dodoria. 'If you listen to Zarbon, Monkey Boy has no manners at all and won't do a thing right.'

'Well,' sighed Frieza, staring mistily at Vegeta as he sipped his fresh glass. 'For all his excellent qualities, Zarbon fails to inspire the dedication in Vegeta that I do. Vegeta is like his father that way. The King was always falling over himself to do as I asked of him.'

Not even the drink could stop the twin roses of mortification blooming on Vegeta's cheeks.

'Maybe so,' said Dodoria. 'But if I recall, even King Vegeta had his limits.'

'Dodoria!' growled Frieza warningly.

'What limits?' said Vegeta, suddenly intrigued by this statement.

'Or rather, he didn't know his limits!' Dodoria grinned, his fat purple lips framing his pointed white teeth. Suddenly he dodged aside, narrowly avoiding Frieza's wine glass, which crashed with a musical tinkle against the low wall behind him.

'Shut your mouth, Dodoria before I really start to lose my temper!' Frieza shouted. 'Go do something useful! Now I need another glass!'

Vegeta turned back to the cabinet, his mind trying to make sense of what he'd just heard. It sounded as if his father _had_ stood up to Frieza after all. At least once.

As he picked up the decanter the foot servant leaned over from the cabinet from the other side, brandishing a fresh glass, and tried to snatch the decanter from Vegeta. The servant was too weak by far to take it from him, but after a moment struggling with him, Vegeta decided the decanter was too delicate to survive such treatment, and besides, he didn't care anyway. He let go and the servant stumbled back, his arm swinging out and causing a ribbon of red liqueur to fly out and splash all over the lizard where he sat on his sun lounger. Frieza popped to his feet in an instant and the fury on his face was heart-stopping. His eyes alighted on the decanter.

'I don't believe it!' he shouted. 'This is the last straw!'

He pointed his finger and a beam of light shot from it. Vegeta held his breath, but the beam missed him and shot straight through the chest of the servant. The man crumpled to the ground with a look of stunned horror still on his face.

'That man was useless!' exclaimed Frieza, flicking beads of alcohol off himself. 'What a way to ruin my evening! Dodoria!'

His general had barely paused in the act of tucking his girth back down the stairway as Frieza's temper played out.

'Yes, My Lord?'

'I'm going to take a bath. Make sure someone brings me another drink.' He made his own way towards the stairs but then stopped, appearing to remember his young Lieutenant standing silent by the cabinet.

'Vegeta, you are free to return to the city and…whatever it is that you do there. Don't let me catch you outside the city again.'

ooo

The next two days crawled by.

Vegeta dragged himself between his room, the mess hall and the training rooms like a zombie, barely registering what he was doing or seeing. There was no more mention of the stolen pod, but Vegeta's fear of being caught refused to fade. Finally something exciting happened on the third day to push the matter from his mind. The Ginyu Squad had returned from their latest mission a day or so ago. The oldest member of the team, Raddichio, had been killed, and so trials were to be held for the latest squad member. Vegeta had harboured ambitions of joining the squad for years, and so he threw his name in the draw, despite knowing it was likely futile. All the most powerful came out of the woodwork for the trials, and many of them laughed at the monkey prince even thinking he had a chance. Even so, Vegeta lasted an hour and defeated three opponents before waking up inside a regeneration tank in the med bay to the news that Jeice had been selected as the latest Ginyu Squad member.

He sat in the med bay for a while, just watching the comings and goings around him, not because it was interesting, but because it was a break from the usual halls and passageways of his life that was all he had to look forward to once he left the room.

His dullness was shattered by a call he received on his scouter.

'Vegeta,' said Zarbon's cutting voice. 'Where are you?'

'Med bay 3.'

'Well, I want you in Frieza's main audience chamber in quarter of an hour. We've got some _questions_ for you. Don't keep us waiting.'

The line was cut, but the vicious, gloating tone Zarbon used rang in his ears and echoed around his body, turning his guts to water. They had found something to connect him to the pod theft, he was sure of it.

'Vegeta, are you all right?' asked Tanith as he passed.

'Yes,' he lied automatically.

'Then why are you destroying my examination table?'

Vegeta looked down and realised that his fists had crushed the edge of the steel table he sat on. Feeling light-headed he got to his feet and wandered to the door. Fifteen minutes…maybe it wasn't too late to steal another pod and get the hell out of here? Fuck! He was doomed!

At the door two soldiers saluted him. 'We're to escort you to the palace, Lieutenant.'

Vegeta eyed them quickly, and estimated that he could easily overpower them, but his desperate thoughts of escape were evaporating. If he'd been sent an escort, that meant Zarbon thought he might not come willingly, therefore he had probably put some measure in place to stop him bolting. Likely as not, Vegeta wouldn't even get as far as one of the pod bays before one of the security heavies or Zarbon himself caught him. It was too late for escape. He'd just have to hope he was wrong, and that he hadn't been discovered.

He shuffled his way to the palace as slowly as the soldiers allowed, trying to calm himself even as his palms and upper lip broke out in cold sweat. He had to be calm if he had any chance at all to bluff his way out of this.

Outside the door to the throne room Vegeta raised his fist to knock, but paused, closing his eyes and envisioning the endless pattern of the waterfall in the ravine. _I must betray no emotion. I must betray no surprise. I must betray no fear_, he told himself, willing his face to come under his control, away from dough-faced terror to a neutral frown of mild irritation. The soldiers grew impatient and knocked for him and the next moment the door swung open, the little clerk behind it. The man looked at Vegeta with excitement, but Vegeta swept past him and approached the dais.

His eyes slid slowly up to where Frieza sat on his throne, a calculating look in his eye. Then he took in Zarbon who sat on the steps of the dais with-

Even after his attempt to prepare himself, Vegeta could not help a slight hesitation in his step as he saw what Zarbon held in his lap. With an iron will he forced himself to go on, and dragged his gaze back to Frieza. It was the golden-skinned girl, Acai, sitting facing him, with Zarbon's arms around her in an imitation of affection, crying quietly. His pulse beat so hard he was worried that the others would be able to see it where they sat. If she'd even mentioned his name he was as good as dead.

He stopped a good ten yards short of the dais and bowed. 'My Lord, you wanted to see me?'

'Yes. There has been some developments in the investigation into the stolen pod. We wanted to know what you thought of them.'

Vegeta was not lulled by the soft wording. He decided to go straight for the jugular. 'Why does _he_ have a Nimbrian slave girl in his lap?' he asked, with a jerk of his head in Zarbon's direction.

'_He_ has this chit because she is part of the pod theft investigation,' snarled Zarbon in return. Vegeta daren't even look over at him.

'My dear little slave thing – tell Vegeta what you told us,' Frieza invited.

'My sister went missing from the slave house five days ago,' came the shaky answer, and the voice was similar, but not the same as Acai's. Vegeta at last found the nerve to look at her properly. It wasn't her. She looked very similar, but there were less green streaks in her hair, and she was younger. It was her sister. He felt a slight lessening of his terror, but only slight.

'Some people saw her go away with a slave guard, and she hasn't been seen since.' She lifted her tear-filled eyes to Vegeta's and he turned away again. Her eyes were exactly the same; round, deep purple, mesmerising.

'What do you think of that, Vegeta?' asked Frieza.

'Didn't Dodoria say that slaves go missing all the time? She's probably dead in a sewer by now.'

This made the girl sob, but Zarbon smiled.

'It's possible, but it's not the only possibility,' said Frieza. 'There was also, on the same night of the theft, an assault on a slave guard in a barracks near the same slave house. It seems a strange coincidence, don't you think? When the guard recovered from his injury he couldn't say what happened, but it seemed as if his uniform and scouter had gone missing from the shower he was attacked in. Zarbon and I were puzzling over what it could mean. What is your guess?'

Vegeta imagined he could feel the soft touch of a noose settling at the back of his neck.

'Was the scouter in question able to be tracked?' he asked, playing along with the charade that he was advising his Lord.

'It was indeed. The records of its movements that Dodoria turned up match exactly the timing of the theft. It seems as if whoever assaulted the guard then entered the slave house and travelled via the underground to pod bay B.'

'Did the signal leave with the pod?' asked Vegeta.

'No,' said Frieza. 'The signal died right there in the pod bay. And the pod's primary tracker was disabled too.'

Vegeta's heart nearly stopped on the word primary. That implied the existence of a secondary tracker he hadn't even known about!

'What about the secondary tracker?' he asked.

'It appears to have been left intact.'

'It sounds as if there were two escapees rather than one then,' he said, willing he bile rising in his throat back down. 'And at least one of them was familiar with pod technology, but not enough to know about the secondary tracker.'

'I'm afraid that is a wide field, Vegeta,' said Frieza. 'Half the civilised galaxy has access to pod technology these days, or at least the civilian grade pods. The secondary trackers though are an exclusive modification for the PTO fleet, so it's likely it wasn't a member of my regular crews or technicians that was to blame.'

Vegeta perked up at this logic. It sounded as if Frieza was actually doubting Vegeta's involvement. Not Zarbon though.

'With respect, my Lord, most of the PTO doesn't know about the secondary trackers either. They're still somewhat _secret_.'

'I knew,' lied Vegeta boldly. 'The technicians were sometimes loose with their words. I think many knew.'

'See, Zarbon?' said Frieza.

Zarbon gave Vegeta a cold stare over the head of the girl, which Vegeta returned almost as coolly. He steadfastly refused to look down at the girl's face still.

'All right then, Vegeta,' said Zarbon slowly. 'Seeing as you apparently know so much, you can tell us about the secondary trackers. Where are they located on the pods?'

Vegeta felt a trickle of perspiration roll between his shoulder blades under his blue battlesuit. 'I don't know. The technicians were discrete enough to keep that secret. Just knowing that it was there and that we didn't know where or how to disable it was enough to make anyone think twice about stealing a pod though. Not that I would, ever.'

Zarbon rolled his eyes at this. 'You didn't know about the tracker until just now.'

'Yes, I did! Why would I say I did, when I didn't?'

Frieza sighed. 'He himself brought up the secondary tracker, Zarbon. How could he just have heard of it?'

'Because…' began Zarbon, and then trailed off, his eyes narrowing in frustration. Vegeta knew that he was weighing up the consequences of pointing out Frieza's own slip-up versus letting the point slide.

'Because?'

'Never mind, my Lord. Perhaps he did know after all.'

Frieza waved the matter aside. 'What do you think could have happened, Vegeta?' he asked again.

Vegeta felt like he was being coaxed for the right answer by an indulgent tutor in front of an examiner. And in this case the examiner was empathically hoping he'd fail.

'I couldn't say for certain, my Lord, but I think…another slave - an unusually strong one - escaped and attacked the slave guard, then used that disguise to free the girl and make their way through the city, and then they both left in the pod together.'

'Hmm,' said Frieza.

'Supposing a slave was strong enough for that feat, why would they escape from one house to rescue another?' asked Zarbon.

'Perhaps it was a parent, or another sibling,' Vegeta suggested.

'Or a lover?' said Zarbon softly.

'Or a lover,' he conceded.

'Well, as we have her sister here, why don't we ask her?' said Zarbon brightly. Vegeta turned his head back to Zarbon, the movement feeling jerky as he fought to suppress his trembling. Gods, the plan he had thought so clever now seemed to be full of holes, and Zarbon was determined to try and catch him through every one.

The tall, yellow-eyed warrior turned the girl in his lap and used one hand to gently tip her head back until she was looking up at him. 'Little one. Goji, did you say your name was? Were either of your parents powerful warriors of your people?'

She shook her head.

'No special powers?'

'No,' she whispered.

'Were either of them even on the slave ships?'

She shook her head again, helpless tears bubbling up at the words.

'Any other siblings? A strong older brother perhaps?'

'No.'

'Did you sister have a lover? Were they, perhaps, powerful enough to attack a slave guard?'

'She – she used to have a boyfriend on Nimbus 3. They broke up a while ago. I don't know…I don't know if he's here.'

'Inconclusive,' said Vegeta.

'Maybe,' said Zarbon. 'Tell me Goji, was he strong? Was he strong enough to fly?'

'_Fly_? No.'

'Well, looks like your explanation is shot,' said Zarbon to Vegeta.

'It's still inconclusive,' said Vegeta. 'Let me ask the questions.'

Zarbon didn't reply, but Vegeta went ahead anyway.

'Girl, did you know everyone your sister knew?'

'No,' she replied. 'She knew a lot of people.'

'Why was that?'

'Because she was famous. She was a singer. She knew lots of people, and nearly everyone knew who she was.'

'So she had lots of admirers?'

'Yes.'

'Is it possible that she even had lovers you didn't know about?'

'I guess.'

'Maybe even the strongest amongst your people?'

'Maybe, it's possible. She has a thing for boxers and tournament fighters.'

Vegeta couldn't help the tiny smirk of triumph as this news. He couldn't have countered Zarbon's argument better.

'Well, your theory still rests on _another_ slave having disappeared at the same time,' Zarbon complained.

Vegeta's smile dropped, along with his stomach.

'What? Nothing to say, Vegeta?'

Vegeta didn't have the breath to say anything even if he did. He felt the quaking building in his knees, but he tensed, his toes digging into the ground in preparation to flee.

'Zarbon, stop playing with him. You know as well as I do another of the Nimbrian slaves _did_ go missing,' said Frieza peevishly. 'The pod was traced to Nimbus 1, so it makes sense.'

'I know, my Lord. But it could have still been co-incidence.'

Vegeta felt he was about to come apart at the seams as relief and then more fear washed through him. It _was_ a co-incidence, and he was born under a lucky star for it to have happened. He should have killed and hidden a slave himself to form part of his alibi, but he hadn't thought of it. But if they had traced the pod…

'Acai went to the homeworld?' asked the slave girl, her voice cutting into their conversation unexpectedly. All three looked at her as if she'd grown another head. 'Why didn't she take me too?'

'Yes, little thing. The pod was traced to Nimbus 1,' said Frieza.

'Was the slave found?' asked Vegeta. He hoped the other two didn't notice how strangled his voice sounded.

'Don't you mean _slaves_?' said Zarbon acidly.

Vegeta's heart skipped a beat. 'I did, thank you, General Zarbon.'

'No,' said Frieza. 'And there's a good chance they're dead now. The secondary tracker is a passive one, which is good, I'm told, because they need no power to be traced. But it is also bad, because you need to know where to look, or at least be in the vicinity to pick up the signal. The word was sent out to all the crews across the galaxy to look for the missing pod, and we had a stroke of luck when the clean up crew from your Nimbus 3 mission picked up the signal on Nimbus 1.'

'They didn't find the slaves though?'

'The clean up crew were a pack of morons,' Frieza said with some heat. 'They went down to investigate, without orders I might add, and set off a very embarrassing political incident. They got in a firepower fight with the Nimbrian military, destroyed several towns in the vicinity and then were killed! Now the Nimbrian government are attempting to take _me_ to court about an unprovoked attack outside the terms of their contract!'

Vegeta was torn between relief and anxiety. Frieza was fuming, the girl was crying again and Zarbon was looking at Vegeta with a very shrewd look on his face. Vegeta suddenly realised that his neutral mask had slipped as he had been looking at the girl. He quickly rearranged his features into a snarl, and Zarbon mirrored it.

'Do you like the look of her, Vegeta?' Zarbon asked, suddenly wrenching the girl's head up to face Vegeta. 'Apparently she looks a lot like her sister, do you agree?'

Vegeta wanted to cry out at the never-ending torment of this interrogation. Zarbon would _not_ let him off the hook!

'I can't say, as I've never seen her sister.'

'Oh, of course not. She's rather your type though, don't you think? Pretty, small, young, and absolutely helpless.'

'I don't have a _type_, General.'

Zarbon's arm suddenly tightened about the girl, and she gasped for breath.

'My Lord Frieza, what should we do with an unproductive slave who spends all her time pining for her sister?'

'I'm not sure, Zarbon,' replied Frieza, slyly. 'Maybe, as she is no use to me, we could give her to Vegeta?'

The ridiculous flower of delight that sprang up in Vegeta's chest was immediately crushed by his realism. Why were they saying this? Was this a trap?

'I have no interest in her.'

'Really? But you could protect her,' said Zarbon.

'Why would I want to do that?'

'Because I'm going to hurt her!' Zarbon suddenly changed his hold on the girl, grabbing one of her wrists with one hand and the fingers with his other, and bent her hand back at right angles. The girl screamed and the sound made the hairs on the back of Vegeta's neck stand up, but he remained still. He knew what Zarbon was up to, and he wasn't about to give himself away. Just how sentimental and stupid did Zarbon and Frieza think he was?

'Little girl,' said Zarbon softly, rocking her back and forth. 'Look at Vegeta. He can save you. All he has to do is say the words and you are his to cherish.' She cringed as far from Zarbon's smiling face as she could and looked to Vegeta with desperate eyes. Then they closed in pain and she screamed again as Zarbon pulled her fingers back further, breaking them in a quick succession of cracks.

'I don't know what you think you're doing,' said Vegeta. His words were calm, but he couldn't help the angry edge to them as he spoke over the sound of the girl's ragged hiccups and cries of agony.

'Scream for Vegeta,' Zarbon said and he pulled on her broken fingers again.

'Stop! Stop it! Vegeta, Vegeta!' she screamed obediently.

Vegeta grit his teeth in anger. It was meant to remind him of last time, and it did, but he wasn't going to give in to it.

'Oh, Vegeta, I didn't think you were so heartless. It's just a few words and you can spare her the rest.'

'What do I care what happens to some pointless slave?' Vegeta looked away and found his Lord gazing at him intently. There was another couple of pops and the girl screamed again. She broke down into sobs and cried out again.

'Vegeta! Don't let him hurt me!'

'You're no concern of mine,' he told her, glancing at her and away.

'Still not moved?' said Zarbon. He nestled his nose against her neck and she struggled against him. 'She smells fantastic! I bet she tastes good too.' He licked up the side of her neck and Vegeta's lips curled into a sneer of revulsion. Frieza made a sound of disquiet. 'Not bad. Lets see…' Zarbon dropped her broken wrist and cupped one hand between her legs.

'No!' she shouted.

'Zarbon!' admonished Frieza. 'I rather think you're enjoying this a little too much, and I don't think you're proving anything. Let her go.'

Zarbon released her and she hit the floor and staggered towards Vegeta, cradling her hand.

'Get away from me!' he shouted, stepping away from her. Frieza gave a chuckle, but Zarbon didn't look pleased to see Vegeta trying to get away from the injured girl. Vegeta caught her at arm's length and held her there, his grip brutally tight, and looked up at Frieza.

'I don't want her,' he said.

'Good,' purred Frieza, 'because that would have been your second mistake. However, I'm satisfied with your conduct now.'

'But what of the pod theft?' asked Zarbon sulkily.

'I'm inclined to believe Vegeta's theory. It makes sense, whereas yours doesn't. Where is Vegeta's motivation for sending a slave home? He has none! It's ridiculous! Now please put aside your grudge, Zarbon. I can't believe you've had me spend so much time on the matter already.'

'Forgive me, Lord Frieza.'

The general sighed and got to his feet, and Vegeta began to hope that this nightmare he'd brought upon himself was finally coming to a close.

'Now,' said Frieza. 'I just require one last thing before I can trust you enough to put you back on active duty, Vegeta.'

'What is that my Lord?' he said eagerly. One last thing to buy his life? He prayed that it was something within his power, and not just some horrible tease by Frieza.

'Kill the slave. No energy blasts this time – the walls have only just been repaired. And quickly.'

That was all? 'Yes, my Lord.'

The girl shook her head in despair. 'No! Don't! Please-'

He spun her around until her back was against his chest, raised his other arm, wrapped it around her neck and pulled.

He felt the little rips and pops as her spinal cord was severed and then she was limp in his arms, quiet at last. She was just like all the other corpses he'd created. Just a scrap of nothing barely attached to a body and torn away with hardly an effort. How disgusting. He dropped the body to the floor. It was just meat. Meat and bones. And he felt nothing other than soaring relief that he was alive. That was what really mattered. The _he_ lived. That _he_ survived.

'Don't leave it there, Vegeta,' said Frieza. 'Take it down to the incinerators.'

'At once, my Lord!' Under the circumstances Vegeta almost felt fondly towards his master. He hefted the floppy tangle of arms, legs and hair. 'But I don't know where the palace incinerators are,' he added.

'I'll see that you get there,' said Zarbon, walking past him with a bitter glance. Vegeta followed, feeling almost like he was floating, so great was the weight of fear lifted from his shoulders. He looked down at the dead girl in his arms, and though he could see she barely looked different from life, he couldn't wait to get rid of her. She could die a thousand times and it wouldn't be worth his life.

'I'm surprised with you,' said Zarbon as they descended stairways into the darkness of the palace's sub levels. 'I really thought you were harbouring some soft core. It looks like your flaws lie elsewhere after all.'

In the furnace room, Zarbon motioned for a soot-faced denizen to open the nearest burner. A whirlpool of gas and fire coiled inside, and when Vegeta tossed her in, the flames burned hot and orange around her clothes and turned her hair into a bright torch for a few moments before the skin cracked and blackened, sizzling as it exposed the flesh to the heat.

And he felt nothing.

Nothing but relief that it was over, and he was alive, and he would never make these mistakes again.

He turned away with a shudder.

'Well, Vegeta, it's good to see that you've learnt this lesson at least.'

ooo

* * *

ooo

He'd gone on feeling nothing for a long time.

It had finally come back to him, safely on the other side of Frieza's demise, slowly, painfully, unwanted and unappreciated. Oh gods, what had he done? Those three girls…he'd shied away from the memory so often that now he couldn't even remember their names – they all blended into one girl that he'd killed, raped, sent to her death and killed again.

Now he understood all he had done. He'd been utterly selfish. He'd sold out two girls' lives for his own, and rescued another, not for her benefit, but for the stroking of his own wounded ego. He knew she was almost certainly dead now. If she'd survived the clean up crew's attack on Nimbus 1 she would have been caught up in the war on the Nimbrian civilisation that Frieza waged a couple of years later, or the genocide of the Nimbrians that followed. He was also certain now that whatever she had claimed or intended, she had not enjoyed the rushed sex he had forced on her, and he had likely hurt her in the process. And then he'd hardened his heart and suffocated the last ghost of compassion he'd had left in his soul with her younger sister's death, and that was why he'd felt nothing. He'd completed his transition from child to monster; someone who shouldn't be suffered to live, someone who only projected the negative outside himself – anger, hatred and contempt were for other people. Pity, tenderness and care became only for himself, and there was very little of it even then.

He looked down at his daughter in the crib again and was overwhelmed with fury at the thought of any teenaged boy treating her like he'd treated those girls…and yet here he was, her protector, her guardian…His fury was for himself, and he felt sick with it…

It hadn't been the worst thing he'd ever done…not in twenty fours years of being Frieza's almost perfect killing machine. But right at that moment it felt like the most shameful.

* * *

_Author's Note: One chapter left to go._


	5. Chapter 5 - Bulma

_Author's Note: This was revised multiple times, but at some point I guess you have to call it done and just post it._

* * *

Bulma lay awake in the dark. She'd heard the shower in Vegeta's room turn off a few minutes ago, and she had the feeling she'd be having a visit from him soon. He still refused to share a room with her, claiming that he couldn't get decent sleep due to her restless sleeping habits, although she maintained that the problem lay in his being a ridiculously light sleeper. However, as the minutes continued to pass she grew impatient. He moved so silently he could have been and gone from the nursery and she wouldn't know. Eventually she flicked the bed side light on. She didn't want to wait for someone who'd slunk away to his own bed without even saying goodnight, so she decided to see if he was coming or not.

She crossed the room and stopped in the open doorway of the nursery. Vegeta still stood before the crib looking down. She smiled and attempted to arrange herself in a sultry pose, though the effect was hampered somewhat by the stretch cotton nightshirt with a print of two cartoon bunny rabbits kissing on the front that Trunks had given to her for her birthday.

'You haven't forgotten about your other woman, have you?' she purred.

He didn't reply, or even move. Bulma frowned. Was he pissed off at her or something? Well, two could play at that game.

'Hey, Vegeta!' she said, marching over to him. That's when she was how tense the muscles in his naked back were, how he was trembling.

'Vegeta!'

Automatically she rushed to the edge of the crib and looked in, but Bra was sleeping soundly, her little chest rising and falling evenly, sucking on her thumb. 'What is it?' she said and looked up into his face, but as soon as she did he turned his head the other way so she couldn't see him. _Oh shit!_ She thought to herself. _Not this again! I thought he was past this!_

She looked down and saw that his hands were clutching the top bar of a Saiyan-baby proof crib. Apparently it wasn't Saiyan adult proof; it was mangled around his hands. She slowly put her own hand over the back of his, and he let go of the bar and pulled his hands away from her to cover his face with them.

She hated when he pulled away from her like this, but it was how he was. Troubling thoughts and memories, powerful emotions – these things could plunge him into far away depths that he chose to travel alone. She wished he wouldn't, and for a few years now he hadn't.

'What is it this time?' she asked softly. 'A…a flashback or…?' She couldn't imagine what could set him off looking at his sleeping daughter. Or rather she could, but she refused to. She put her hand on his back and a shudder ran up his spine before he turned away from her, heading back out through her bedroom. He went straight towards the balcony doors and she trotted after him, at a loss for what to do to stop him.

'Vegeta…oh please, not again!'

He stopped in the door that he'd opened and half turned his face towards her. 'I'll be back.'

She let out a breath as he closed the door behind him, jumping into the sky still wearing only a bath towel. It was true; he'd always come back. How long would it be this time, she wondered? Hours? Days? A week? His record was six weeks, unless you counted the time he took Capsule 3 into space. In that case his record was a year.

'Oh please, don't do _that_ again!'

She got into bed and tried not to worry. She tried not to get angry either. She'd really hoped she'd seen the end of these disappearing acts. She hated making excuses for Vegeta's absences to Trunks. She had been starting to hope she'd never have to do the same to Bra.

She couldn't sleep now. Her gut didn't twist with anxiety like it used to, but she couldn't relax either. _Oh, Vegeta!_ She wished that even when he couldn't open up he'd at least not ditch her. After an hour or so of worrying, she gave in to the temptation to ease the tension in the least healthy way possible. She got up and went down the hall to one of the many spare bedrooms and opened the wardrobe. There on the top shelf, sealed in plastic so that Vegeta's nose couldn't sniff them out, were her emergency stash of cigarettes and a lighter. She went back to her bedroom and pulled on a cardigan, then slipped out her balcony doors to stand in the cool, still air. She pulled the zip lock bag open and savoured the rich smell of the tobacco that wafted out. She could go months without a cigarette, even years, and prided herself on her will power, but she'd always be a willing pushover for the dubious relief they gave. She was no so much an addict as helplessly in love with their deadly joys.

She only got as far as pulling one of the cigarettes to her lips before a rough voice cut down through the night sky and scared the living daylights out of her.

'Don't even think about it!'

She looked up the curve of the roof above her balcony but couldn't see him.

'Vegeta?'

She heard the sound of fabric and skin sliding against the metal cladding of the building and then he came into view, dropping to the balcony before her. The wrapping of his towel gave way and dropped to the floor and Bulma let her mouth twitch with amusement before she caught sight of his expression and her mirth swiftly evaporated again.

'You know I won't step foot in the room with you after you've been at those filthy things.'

Bulma shrugged as he took the packet and threw it out over the garden, then sent a bolt of chi after it to turn it to ash before it hit the ground. She didn't mind. She felt more than relieved that he was here (and slightly ashamed that he'd caught her out).

'You didn't go far this time,' she said, trying to say it lightly, but hearing the emotions wound up behind her words anyway.

Vegeta was still facing out over the grounds. 'I needed to think,' he said.

'What were you thinking?'

For a long time he said nothing. Bulma stared at his profile, her hopefulness turning into worry, then irritation. She held her tongue – she'd learnt that saying something cutting or sarcastic at a moment like this would only provoke him into an angry outburst and they'd argue instead of getting to the point.

'I was thinking…' he said eventually, 'that…I should not live at Capsule Corp anymore.'

Bulma was floored. She wasn't expecting that!

'What? Wait - no! _Why?_' _Why was he saying such a thing? _ 'Vegeta, I don't believe you! Why would you want to move out? I thought things were okay between us right now! Better than okay!' She couldn't help the pain in her voice when she said what she'd thought had been true. 'I-I thought things were wonderful! I've been so happy! Haven't you been happy?'

He cringed at her words and curled his body over the top edge of the balcony and he tuned his face away again to hide his emotion.

'I've been…happy,' he admitted in a strangled voice.

'Well then, what's the problem?' she snapped back at him.

'The problem is…that I am _not_ the type of man you want in the house, guarding your children. I told you years ago, I'm not a "family man," like you Earthlings say. I meant it and it's still true.'

She guessed from this that Vegeta was feeling bad about something, probably from his past, and doubting himself all over again. Bulma took a deep breath and regrouped her thoughts for battle. She was on familiar ground now – they'd had this argument many times before.

'Why?' she asked glibly. 'Were you looking down contemplating murdering our little girl in her cot?'

'No!' he said angrily. 'Be serious, Woman! As if I would ever do that!'

'Well then, I still don't see the problem. You can't tell _me_ what type of man I do or don't want in the house.'

'Bulma!' he turned back to her at last, exasperation making him snarl and spit the words as he shouted them at her. 'You don't know who I am! You STILL don't know who I am! You listen but you don't understand, and half the time you won't even LISTEN! You refuse to see the person I've been, and I know you don't because I know _you_. If you could see the things in my head you wouldn't want to look me in the eye again, let alone have me in the house!'

'Lower your voice, Vegeta!' she hissed back at him angrily. 'You'll wake Bra! And how dare you say I don't know you! I fucking know you well enough after eighteen years, and I know I want you here! You've only given me reason to doubt that decision a few times, and not for years. And before you say it!' she raised her finger to head off his objection. 'Because I _do_ know you so well, I can tell you're about to say that I don't know, or even want to know, everything you did when you worked for Frieza! And what I say to that is, so fucking what? I don't care who you ONCE were! I know _you!_ I know you _now!_ And I know that the man you are now is exactly the kind of husband and father I want in the house! Except for when you've got me worried you're going to take off in a cloud of unresolved guilt and self-loathing and never come back!'

He had lowered his eyes to the ground while she'd said her piece, and now he simmered silently, his shoulders slumped in defeat. She realised she'd hit the mark, rather too forcefully.

'I am not meant to be here,' he said eventually. 'Every day is a lie. I live the life of a better man – someone who has not forfeited his chance of a simple and happy life.'

'I wouldn't call your life _simple_,' she ventured, thinking of all the crazy things that had happened since Vegeta had come to live in her house.

'You know what I mean.'

'Well then, if we're going to allocate happiness by worthiness, maybe I should also be examining my share, do you think? What did _I_ do to deserve this life? Nothing, other than have the luck to be born into my family. I got the looks of my mother and the brains of my father, and the inheritance of their fortune due to no virtue of my own. When I was growing up I was curious, easily bored, bad tempered, and a risk taker. Those traits could've gotten me killed, but instead I got you and my children, a hugely successful company and a satisfying career. I totally lucked out! Maybe we both did.' She lay her hand on his shoulder, trying to get him to look her in the eye. 'You say you forfeited your chances…You did once perhaps, but you've earned more chances. Shenron knew you weren't evil when you were wished back to life with all the other innocents on Earth. It wasn't a mistake that you came back. I wish you would forgive yourself. It doesn't matter who you were once upon a time. That person is dead. All that matters is what you do now.'

He heaved a sigh and then shivered.

'Come inside,' she said, pouncing on the moment. 'It's too cold tonight to stand around naked outside, navel gazing.'

'I'm not cold,' he said.

'But _I_ am.'

He looked through the window at the bed but didn't move, so she wrapped herself around him and began gently pulling him back towards the open door.

'Please, Vegeta! Please come inside. I don't care what you did, I want you with me.'

He took a couple of reluctant steps and then grasped her to him, stopping them right in the doorway. She kissed his neck and his cheek and his ear; all she could reach while he was hiding his face in the crook of her neck.

'Don't!' he moaned, but she was merciless, running her fingers through his hair and stroking his back.

'You don't even want to go,' she told him. 'You're not going anywhere, so come inside.'

'Damn your arrogance, Woman, thinking you know me backwards and forwards,' he growled, but it sounded like more capitulation to her than a denial.

'Am I wrong?'

He sighed, lifted her off her feet and walked them back inside before dropping her on the bed and hauling her into the middle of it, which was all the answer she got. She caught sight of his defeated expression before he wrapped himself over her, his face pressed to the front of her nightdress and his arms tight around her waist, and knew his dark mood was not yet over.

She stroked his hair down, to get the tickling mass out of her face more than anything, but he seemed to relax his grasp on her a little, so she continued; digging her fingers in deeper until her fingertips ran along his scalp and triggered all those muscles tense from scowling and anger and whatever other stress Vegeta put himself through almost every minute of the day. He sighed deeply and shuddered a little. She might've thought he was crying, but she knew him better than that. She could count on one hand the number of times he'd shed tears in all their time together, and still have fingers to spare. His voice was quite even when he finally spoke.

'Only you have ever done that to me.'

'Poor boy,' she said, knowing better now than to ask something stupid, like 'Didn't your mother stroke your hair?' He wasn't even sure who his mother had been, and had no fond memories of the prime candidate. Her comment made him chuckle though; a short and dark snort of humour.

'You are perverse, do you know that?' he said.

'Apparently so.' She continued her ministrations until he got up, crossed to the open balcony door and closed it. Then he returned to her, pulling the comforter over them and nestled beside her, closing his eyes. She breathed a sigh of relief. The worst was over.

ooo

Vegeta woke again to the sound of Bulma mumbling in her sleep and wriggling furiously against him. His heart was still pounding from the dream he'd been jolted from. He attempted to hold her still by wrapping his arms around her, but she went rigid and cried 'Soapsuds!' and he let her go, the absurdity of it knocking him out of his fear for a moment and making him smile. It was too much to expect that he be allowed some decent sleep in Bulma's bed. His mate's brilliant mind didn't stop in her sleep, but he had to wonder what went on in here to make her shout 'soapsuds'. His smile died when he contemplated his own dream again.

He'd been flying through the underground of Frieza's city with Bulma in his arms, then up across the plaza into the pod bay. He killed the technicians and she clambered in the door and ran to him.

'Vegeta, I don't want to die!' she said to him with tears in her eyes.

'Bulma, I'm never going to let that happen,' he'd told her, but dread filled his stomach and chest because he knew how this dream ended. He couldn't do that to her – how could he have before? She threw her arms around him and kissed him and he kissed her back desperately, pulling her to the floor. The concrete melted away and became the turquoise grass of a lakeside meadow on old planet Namek. They rolled around in it, shedding clothes, the fear of the previous moment retreating into a background unease under the orange sun and green sky. Bulma was astride him in her underwear and stood up, laughing. With a flourish she unclasped her bra and strutted away from him, dropping her panties as she went.

'Time for a swim, lover boy?' she said suggestively over her shoulder.

'No, Bulma, there _is_ no time! I have to get you out of here,' he told her, but she dived into the green water anyway. He scrambled to his feet and looked around in panic. Somewhere out here was Frieza, and he didn't have his scouter on him to tell where. Then he realised that it didn't matter. He could feel Frieza's dark, volatile energy creeping up behind him, rolling over him in oppressive waves. The scent of the ruby liqueur filled his nose. Zarbon shot from the water holding Bulma who writhed and screamed.

'Vegeta!' snapped the sibilant voice behind him. 'You never learn, do you? You're just going to have to kill this one too! Don't make me tell you again!'

'No!' he shouted. 'I will _not_ kill her!

But he had awoken.

He looked down on his sleeping mate, relieved the dream hadn't been real. He'd choose death before he let her be killed. After all, he didn't think he could live without her now. He'd been a fool earlier to suggest he could give up living as her mate. It was stupid, really. The melodrama of the gesture was faintly embarrassing to him now. It didn't change that he felt undeserving of his happiness. He just knew he'd never willingly let go of her, or his children.

He gathered her to him, feeling suddenly lonely to be awake while she was asleep, and kissed her forehead, then softly, her lips. To his surprise she kissed him back in her sleep, and he lingered over her, brushing his tongue over her lips experimentally.

'Mmm,' she said and wrapped a clumsy arm around his neck and kissed him deeply in return. What was she dreaming of now, he wondered? Skinny-dipping on Namek? He wanted the real her to dispel the dream. He let the kiss go on and on, Bulma growing more and more ardent in her movements, pressing herself to him and wrapping both arms around him though she still hadn't opened her eyes. He ran a hand up under her nightshirt and she moaned out of all proportion with the action. Whatever she was dreaming, it must be good, he thought to himself, slightly jealous that he was not there with her. He decided to play with her until she joined him on this side of consciousness.

He dragged her down the bed so that her nightshirt rucked up about her armpits and knelt between her legs, looking down on the landscape of her sleeping body. Where first? He ran his hands up the insides of her thighs, spreading them wider, and even that made her gasp. He could feel the thrumming of her excited pulse beneath her skin and feel the warmth of it increasing, and her scent…it kindled a matching desire in himself, but somehow it all just made him feel lonelier and sadder.

He bent down to lay his cheek against her abdomen and said her name softly – wanting her to wake but not wanting to wake her. She only sighed.

He crouched over her body and dragged his face over the pale skin, belly to ribs to breasts, filling his nose and mouth with her scent and softness. She shuddered and put her arms around him to pull him up for another kiss. She arched against him, greedy for more, ready, it seemed, for anything, and wiggled her hips, trying to get him to join with her already.

'Vegeta,' she spoke at last, begging in a little voice. 'Please, please…!'

The begging was gratifying, but he was still shocked.

'So soon?' he asked.

'Yes! It's just…' Her eyes were open, but half-lidded with lust and her lips plump and parted. She looked beautiful and carnal and innocent all at once. 'I want you so bad, Vegeta,' she said, and he was not convinced at all that she was fully awake, but her breathy words curled around his ego and squeezed it, sending an urgent message down his spine to his groin. He was catching up to her fast.

He eased himself into her, feeling just how eager she was; so warm, wet and welcoming, he thought he would melt against her at her groan of satisfaction. She rocked underneath him, setting a drawn out pace that revelled in the almost unbearable sensation, clutching him tight, her unselfconscious noises of pleasure pulling him after her as she edged towards her climax. _I do this to her_, some deep, primitive part of himself preened to itself. _I make my woman feel _this_ good!_

When she came he was right behind her, adding his own gasps to hers, and for a second all thoughts were expunged from his mind and there was only _this_; this moment that he threw control to the wind and just _felt_.

And then inexplicably and horribly he was thrown back into the moment after he'd shamed himself with the Nimbrian girl on the floor of the pod bay. His heart, pounding from his orgasm, went on hammering in fear as the memory intruded on this happy moment and crushed it beneath the weight of his regret. His body tensed, telling him to flee, and he bit his tongue against the urge to cry _I'm sorry, I'm sorry!_

How had a mere memory done that? He'd been fairly successful in not thinking of that time for so long, and now it spontaneously erupted in his dreams and spoiled the intimacy between himself and his mate. Had he picked the top off a scab that would now ooze unpleasant memories for who knew how long? He was suddenly, irrationally, afraid that it would never stop weeping again.

'Wow,' Bulma said, laughing into his ear.

He lifted his head and looked down at his mate, feeling suddenly a thousand miles away from her. Even after eighteen years, an enormous abyss of experience separated them, and in it lay all the things he hadn't told her and she didn't want to know. It was quite likely that he was the only person still alive that remembered the events that troubled him. He was alone with his memories, and the weight of bearing them alone was growing intolerable.

ooo

Bulma's laugh faded as she made out Vegeta's stricken expression in the dim moonlight coming through the windows.

'So you _are_ awake then?' he asked in a gruff voice.

'Yes. Though I'm not really sure when my dream ended and reality began,' she replied.

'It must've been quite a dream.'

'It was,' she said with a chuckle, and then she frowned. 'Is everything okay?'

'Yes,' he said leadenly, and rolled off her, leaving her cold with no comforter and her nightshirt wrapped around her shoulders. The weight of worry settled on her heart again. It looked as if whatever was troubling Vegeta earlier still had hold of him. She wriggled around to sort herself out, struggling to haul the comforter over herself again, as Vegeta was lying on top of it. He got off the bed to let her have it and then headed towards the door.

'I'm going to bed,' he said.

'No!' she said. 'Not yet! Come back!'

'I would like to get _some_ sleep tonight,' he said acidly.

'You don't need to go rushing off like that. A girl could get her feelings hurt.'

He crossed his arms and scowled down at her.

'Come here,' she commanded.

'Woman, you don't tell me what to do,' he said flatly.

'Well, don't force me to order you around then!'

'What?' he said, apparently struggling with that logic.

'I know what I mean! Vegeta, please! Come back to bed.'

Sighing, he turned back and flopped back down on the bed next to her, on his stomach, his face turned away from her. She sat up and contemplated his stern profile. He wasn't angry at _her_ was he? No, she decided. He couldn't be.

She stroked her fingers through the hair on the back of his head again, as this had worked so well before. 'Tell me what's wrong,' she said.

'Why? You don't want to know.'

'I think I do.'

He didn't say anything for a while, but she could see his jaw flexing as he tried to master whatever emotion he struggled with.

'You were wrong earlier,' he said eventually.

'About what?'

'When you said that the person I once was is dead. He's not dead. He's me. I can't get away from it, or forget what I did forever.'

She stopped her stroking, her hand resting on the back of his head. She guessed she hadn't thought of it this way. She might not care what kind of person he'd once been, but _he_ still did, obviously.

'I remember what I did,' he continued, 'and why, and how I thought and felt about it. I might be different, but I'm still me. I'm still _he_. And you aren't interested in hearing all that "he" did.'

'I know what kinds of things you did,' she said. 'I've heard enough from you to guess the rest. Prying for more would just be…' What? Voyeuristic? Unpleasant? 'What would the point be? Let sleeping dogs lie.'

'You _never_ pry about my past.'

'I listen to whatever you have to tell me.'

'Meanwhile, I can see you wanting to run screaming from the words. I can practically hear the wheels of your mind spinning, trying to justify and dismiss everything I've done as forgivable. And so I haven't told you the worst.'

Bulma blushed with guilt. She knew it was true. She liked her bad man, but she hated hearing just _how_ bad he'd been. Knowing the details made it too true for her. It made her question herself. It was too painful and upsetting and she was too cowardly to test her love like that. But now she realised that Vegeta didn't have any ignorance to hide behind. He couldn't turn away or glance over the details of what he'd done like she could, and it was eating at him.

'I thought most of the shitty things you did didn't bother you. That's what you told me.'

'Most of it doesn't. Maybe a lot of what doesn't should. But then there are other things…'

_What_ things? What things could Vegeta find more distressing than the memories of genocides and executions he'd carried out? Bulma felt the urge to turn away from the thought again, to run screaming as he'd rightly accused her of, but she willed herself to hold tight.

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'You're right. I'd prefer not to know.' She hesitated over what she said next. 'If you really need to talk about something that happened, you can tell me. But if it doesn't need to be said…if it doesn't need to be _me_ you tell…' He pulled away from her, shirking her hand, and she realised how weak that sounded. 'No, wait!' she said, back-pedalling. 'Vegeta, tell me what's bothering you, please!'

'I don't wish to tell anyone,' he said into the mattress, 'least of all you, because I wish it had never happened! I'm afraid that if I tell you, you'll really see me for what I am and you'll throw me out of the house yourself.'

'Then, why would you tell me at all?'

'Because I also…hope that you won't.'

Bulma felt alarm tingle from the tips of her fingers and toes to her heart even as it squeezed with sympathy for her husband. Most of the time he was so self-contained and full of swagger that even she could forget sometimes that he still needed acceptance like any other person. She knew he didn't care if everyone hated him, just as long as she and her family didn't, and that tiny niche in the universe was important to him. She hadn't realised that all this time she'd been denying some part of him inclusion in their little world. _Oh fuck_, she cursed, realising that if she wanted to be truly fair to him, she would have to hear this out.

She crossed her fingers, scrunched up her face and prayed to Kami as she said, 'I won't. Now tell me.'

He said nothing for a long moment, and then he propped himself up on his elbows, and when he spoke he kept his eyes on his hands, and fidgeted, running one thumb over the palm of his other hand compulsively.

Bulma imagined his old white gloves still in place. He didn't wear them anymore, but she suspected he missed their comforting presence at times.

'You once asked me about other women,' he started uncertainly. 'If there had been any before I met you.'

'I remember,' she replied. Already this conversation had taken a different path than she expected. Her dread doubled. 'You told me that there'd only been a few before me. Nothing of importance…'

He snorted grimly. 'Not how you meant, anyway. There were only three times, and three females I'd ever lain with before you. The first two really did mean nothing. They were just…' He stopped himself and gritted his teeth before going on. 'They were just prostitutes that took my money and that was that. Raditz was a fan of…' he waved his hand, dismissing all of "that".

Bulma held down her shudder. She had always suspected that something of that kind had happened. His tales about Raditz and Nappa certainly suggested he was no stranger to brothels, but still, it was icky to think of _her_ husband paying for sex. It was just so skeevy. And then she realised that this fact was, of course, not the point of the story.

'And what about the third woman?'

'Not a woman, a girl. Girls. It's really about three girls.'

Bulma gasped in confusion and shock. 'Three _girls_? How - how old?'

'I don't know. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen? About the same age as I was at the time.'

'Okay then,' she said, relaxing again. 'Tell me about the three girls.'

ooo

He told her a tale, sketching it out first with bald words, and then filling it in with details at Bulma's prompting and questioning. He shook as he told it, and she shook too. Reading between the lines, Bulma heard a tale about a youth spent in fear and loneliness under cruel and hateful surrogate parents, with only the flame of his own stubborn belief in himself as a Saiyan to warm him. That and his pride in a job well done. Even now she could hear in the words he chose that the "repossession job" on Nimbus 3 was a moment of achievement for him. She found her own reaction swinging jarringly from natural pride for her husband's precociousness to revulsion at the blasé description of the death and destruction he'd been so good at dealing.

She bit her lip and clenched her fists as he described his abduction of the pink haired Nimbrian, afraid he would reveal some reprehensible act that she would never be able to forgive him for. Tears pricked her eyes when he told her about the girl sucking her thumb in hypersleep, and how Bra doing the same had pushed this all to the front of his mind. Her heart was warmed by his attempt to save her, only to be shocked again by what Frieza had forced him to do to her.

The story grew darker and the tension tighter as he went on. She imagined the city she'd never been to, the cell that he had lived in for years, and felt their imaginary walls closing in on her with Frieza's deadly disapproval and Zarbon's horrific dominating. When he told her about his dream and the plan it inspired - to save another girl in the stead of the first - she understood the impulse entirely, though he seemed unsure still of what made him do it.

'It was foolish,' he said.

'It was brave,' she retorted. 'You were proving that Frieza and Zarbon didn't control every aspect of you. That they couldn't stop you doing something good if you wanted to.'

'I thought I was proving that they didn't own me entirely, but in the end I only proved to myself that they _did_.'

Bulma bit her nails as he told her about the rescue, but then flushed with vicarious mortification as he haltingly told her what happened in the pod bay control room. He held his face cradled in his hands as he forced himself to keep saying the words, and Bulma felt herself awash in such a strange brew of emotions – distaste, anger and embarrassment for him, sympathy for both _him_ and the girl, and bizarrely, jealousy that he'd had anything to do with another woman, and that she still made him feel so much after all this time.

When he got to the part where he'd sent the pod into space, Vegeta was silent for a long time. He sniffed before he spoke again, and Bulma wondered if he actually was crying this time. Her own face was streaked with tears.

'Did I rape her?' he asked.

Everything in her cringed from the word. She wanted to shout _no, not you! You could never do such a thing!_ But that wasn't the truth. 'I - I don't know. You'd have to ask her. Only she knows.'

'She said I didn't at the time. That she'd wanted it too. As I held her life in the balance.'

Bulma paused, trying to imagine the scene from his description of the long-ago memories. Had the girl been too scared of Vegeta to stop him? Had she changed her mind? What had she even intended in the first place? These were missing answers they would never know. Vegeta was not faultless though, that was clear. 'It sounds like you were…inelegant. Inexperienced. Inconsiderate. Lonely. Desperate for affection. I don't know what that all adds up to,' she said.

'You make me sound so helpless.'

'Don't you think you were? You were just a kid. You know, even when you first came to live here, there were still some ways in which you were like a child.'

Vegeta swivelled his head to glare at her with one reddened eye.

'I'm not insulting you,' she insisted. 'I mean, I was childish too, in other ways. I know that. But I don't think that you had had all the things in your life that you needed to finish growing up.'

'Like what?'

'Like…love.'

'Oh, I might've known you'd trot out the dewy-eyed crap.'

'Hey!' she scolded. 'Don't be like that! We both know you love, and that you value love. You were starving for it even when you didn't know what it was, so don't mock it.'

'Hmph,' he grunted, but didn't deny it.

She didn't know why the killing of millions never bothered him, but the thought that he might've overpowered a girl did. Or the killing of the first girl, who would have died anyway. If he'd thoughtlessly incinerated them during the purge their deaths would never have bothered him. Did it violate his honour code – the same code that had no quibble with killing every man woman, and child to order? He had chosen to connect himself to these girls. Did they fall under some other clause then? Was that why he'd never harmed her or her family? When she'd asked him to come live at Capsule Corporation it had been on nothing more than a hunch that he held such honour.

The rest of the story was a downward spiral into justified paranoia. Zarbon's midnight gift of the "keepsake" made her feel sick. By the time Vegeta got to the part where he was called to Freiza's throne room she had a much better understanding of both Zarbon and Frieza, and she was shaking in anticipation of the ending before it finally arrived, just as chilling as she had feared. Vegeta's voice was thick and angry as he declared himself an unmitigated monster for killing the sister when he knew it to be wrong, and for how he did it eagerly to save himself and felt nothing at all. He stopped there, at the lowest point of the story, with the unlucky girl's skin crisping in the furnace and he finally earning a reluctant endorsement from Zarbon. Vegeta hid his face again while Bulma cried for the boy he'd once been.

She wondered what was worse – the way he could easily talk about the wholesale murder of a planet of people as he had at the beginning, or the difficulty he had even now trying to say why he had tried to save the first two girls or what he'd felt about any of them. But she could see the guilt all around and thick upon his heart. He _was_ a better man, which was why the memory hurt him so.

She reached out and touched his face.

'Vegeta, I'm so sorry.'

He finally looked up at her in bemusement. 'What are _you_ sorry for?'

'That you had to go through that.'

He snorted. 'Yes, _I_ had to go through that. Still, I got a better deal out of it than three Nimbrian girls, don't you think?'

'You liked them. You felt sorry for them,' she offered him.

'Maybe. Maybe that was a part of it. But that was not all.'

'That was why you didn't want them to die. It's why you're still so upset about it now. Even when you were killing so many you still had part of you that had compassion.'

'But I killed them anyway, the first and the third. I even thought about killing the second once she knew who I was.'

'But you didn't. And you had no choice but to kill those two girls.'

He shook his head. 'That's what I thought at the time, but I always had a choice. I could have refused Frieza and let him do with me what he would. I could have run away. Maybe he would've caught me, but I might have lived my whole life quietly on the other side of the galaxy. It's a big place. But I didn't even try. I didn't want to. I put cold revenge and my own glory ahead of_ everyon_e who died at my hands, not just those girls. I didn't care about the price anyone else paid for my own convenience.'

'You didn't know any other way.'

'Even if I didn't, does that excuse it? It's not like I didn't know killing people was wrong. I just didn't care. A lot of the time I even enjoyed it.'

Bulma felt a wave of horror wash through her, leaving her feeling nauseas.

'Don't tell me I'm blameless for that,' he challenged her, and Bulma had no return. It wasn't like his complicity in Frieza's wholesale murder hadn't been hinted at before. He'd even claimed outright to have enjoyed it, long ago, when they were still getting to know each other and he was trying to shock her. She hadn't totally taken him seriously back then, or if she had, she'd revised her stance as she unearthed the good in the man and fell for him. But to have him say it now, so baldly…Now she _knew _he was serious. How could she have gone so long with her eyes purposely shut on that aspect of who he was? She realised that she'd been so desperate to justify her affection for him, her love for the man he was becoming, that she'd blurred in her mind the worst of what he told her about himself. She felt like a fool. A self-deceiving fool. And she felt afraid of the man next to her for the first time in years.

_Is there something wrong with me that I fell in love with a man like that?_ she asked herself. What if he got up tomorrow and decided he'd like to watch a city burn again, blow up kindergartens and mow down citizens as they ran from him? But then she reminded herself that he was not that man now. She'd bet on a dark horse and maybe she'd been wrong about just how remote the chances were, but she'd still been on the money – he was a man worth a thousand men – a million! There was no one she'd rather have in the universe!

She steadied herself. He would never harm her or their children (at least, not seriously and not outside of the gravity room). He might kill to protect them, but she was sure that that was the only reason he would kill these days.

'Okay, you win,' she said. 'You used to be evil. Maybe nearly completely evil. _Used to be_.'

'No. I was completely evil once I'd killed that third girl.'

'Don't be silly,' she told him. 'You'd have died if you defied Frieza.'

'So? I would die for _you_.' He didn't need to say that he already had. She grasped his hands and squeezed them. She didn't want to say it, but his remorse was the only silver lining of his story.

'I know. But you barely knew those girls. You were young; you were scared. A teenager doesn't make decisions like that. Now your older and wiser, and you're judging that boy by your standards now.' She sighed and then smiled slightly. 'And let's not forget that if you'd have been killed I'd have never have met you. Earth would probably have been destroyed.'

'Earth would probably have been completely safe and anonymous if I'd never come along.'

'You don't know that! Maybe we'd have been next on Frieza's hit list? And the androids or Cell would probably have wiped us out.'

'It doesn't matter anyway. Even if I had a hand in saving this mudball, what's one planet of lives compared to hundreds of planets? I'm damned.'

Bulma frowned. She didn't like to think she lived in a universe that damned her husband, when he no longer deserved it, and refused to believe that she did. 'What makes you think it works that way, mister? It's not your past but your present, is what I've always been told! You did a lot of evil shit, but you changed. That's what _counts_. What you do _now_. Anyway, have you forgotten – you saved the whole fucking universe from Buu! If you and the Z fighters hadn't stopped him he would have consumed everything! Shenron brought you back to life when he resurrected everyone without evil in their heart! You're…you're a good man now.'

He grunted. 'That makes no sense. I was no better than any other soldier in Frieza's army, and a damn sight worse than most. If they'd come to Earth and turned their lives around would you he holding their hands now telling them they're good men? Instead they're all dead and in Hell where I put them. What you're saying is that opportunity and time can buy forgiveness and happiness. That leaves redemption up to chance.'

'You also need the heart to take the opportunity when it comes to you. You took it. You had heart. You said you felt nothing when you killed the third girl. I don't think that's true. You felt it, but to survive you packed it away until it was finally safe to feel again.'

He rolled his eyes. 'Did every evil person rotting away their Eternity in Hell get a chance?'

'I don't know. Maybe they did, but they wouldn't take it. Or maybe they didn't and you're just lucky you lived long enough to change.'

He gave a mirthless bark of laugher. 'That sounds more like it. I only survived my first death by mistake after all.'

Bulma smiled as she remembered what she'd said when she'd seen that Vegeta had been wished back to Earth from Namek along with herself, Gohan and all the Nameks. _What's he doing here? We didn't mean to bring _him_ back!_

'Perhaps you were spared…destined for greater things,' she said, laying her head against his shoulder. She wrapped one arm around his back and squeezed him, and he turned to face her, leaving his defensive, hunched position at last.

'By who?' he asked, his voice half hopeful and half mocking.

'By a higher power, I guess. The Kaioshin, maybe?'

He shook his head and let go of the hope. 'I don't think my destiny is controlled by that pack of clowns. They couldn't plan a tea party, let alone my _destiny_.'

'Well, maybe there's a higher power than the Kaioshin? Where do they get their orders from? Their power?'

'I don't know. For all I know it's just those boneheads in charge of the whole universe. No, I don't believe my destiny is written by anyone else. Only I control it.'

'Only you? Not luck? Not chance?' She stroked his face. 'Are you responsible for every random event that happens to you? Every unkind thing that others have done to you? Every happy thing? Every sad thing? Everything that forces your hand to make a decision you didn't want to make?'

He stared back at her, his black gaze wavering on he edge of hope again, and she suddenly felt him so far away, even though he lay right next to her. Her heart cried out silently to him, calling him back to her, and after long moments he returned, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tight, not letting go. That's how she fell asleep again eventually – forehead to forehead, limbs entangled with her husband.

ooo

Vegeta woke again, this time from no dream at all. One of Bulma's hands fluttered softly against his waist and he knew he'd have to move if he was going to sleep again. Gently he detached himself from her and covered her with the comforter, then stood at the bedside looking down at her, a warm aching in his chest. It felt good to have shared that piece of himself with her. It was such a strange urge to confess. He'd wanted her to know, but at the same time, even now he was dismayed that she did. But what made him feel lightest of all was that she hadn't pushed him away. She'd been upset, but she'd accepted it. Of course, she'd thought up every excuse under the sun to lighten the load of his responsibility, as he'd known she would. He didn't buy it by a long shot, nor would he blame luck and chance overmuch for the choices he'd made in the past, but it didn't seem to matter. She knew and she _still_ wanted him.

Fate, chance or self-determination - he didn't know how he got here, but he was glad he had.

He wandered back through the nursery, reluctant tonight to leave her or his daughter alone, even if he was desperate to shut his eyes for some proper sleep. His bedroom was only on the other side of the nursery, but tonight that seemed too far.

He moved the high-backed nursing chair close to the door between Bulma's room and the nursery. From here he could see both Bulma sprawled on her bed and Bra, who now slept in a crouched position with her cheek pressed to the crib mattress. He wrapped himself in the angora throw rug he found folded on the chair and sank into the plump cushioning, bringing his legs up to sit cross-legged. It had low armrests and it rocked, and the feel of it faintly reminded him of a space pod; a comforting thought.

From nowhere a name came to his lips; a name he thought he'd forgotten.

'Chia…'

Suddenly in his mind's eye he could see her clearly, pink and plump and looking at him with trust in her big, violet eyes. He could see all of them – Acai; golden, beautiful and naked, smiling and crying at the same time, and Goji; tormented and desperate, her last hope in Vegeta shining out of her young face.

'I'm sorry!' he croaked. To his mortification his throat clogged and his eyes blurred with the tears he hadn't let himself shed all night. He gave up and let them come. No one was going to see. But now they didn't come with the burning pain of furious shame and self-recrimination he'd felt before. They were tears of only grief, and then after a while, even that eased.

He fell asleep to the sound of Bra's gentle snoring.

* * *

_Author's Note: And so here is the end! Let me know your thoughts. I can let you know mine in return! Do you think that Bulma is overly indulgent towards Vegeta? Do you think that, as a fan, you might be too? I have my own opinion on him and my own feelings towards the character. Feel free to ask me questions. It's always interesting to see the words you've written be interpreted by someone else and thrown back at you. Sometimes the readers don't see what I see. Sometimes I realise I haven't written what I thought I'd written._

_Another thanks to Adli for her help! It still shames me that someone who learnt English as a second language is better at punctuation in English than I am. Also I hope I didn't break any grammatical rules in my final revision of this chapter that I did AFTER Adli had done her beta magic on it._

_Okay, I shall shift my focus back to Never Ever Land now. New chapter coming for that quite soon. And if you've never read any of my work other than this story, but you liked it, I recommend reading Broken Down Universe as the closest thing of mine to the tone of this story. It is more of an action/sci-fi/romantic drama AU though._


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